


The Open Space of Desire

by Prevalent_Masters



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (Accidental), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Sex, Barebacking, Climber Keith, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Everyone lives in a small town in Utah, Fluff and Humor, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, M/M, Oral Sex, References to Drugs, River Guide Lance, Semi-Public Sex, Sexual Content, The Whole Gang's Here - Freeform, gratuitous beer drinking, klance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:28:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 44,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22313287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prevalent_Masters/pseuds/Prevalent_Masters
Summary: Keith’s doing just fine, thanks. So maybe he dropped out of college and maybe he doesn’t have what one might call “direction” in his life, but so what? He’s got a job he doesn’t hate, he’s got enough friends for his liking, he’s got Shiro, he’s got climbing on the weekends, he’s got the hookups with closeted college boys every once in awhile, and he’s fine. Happy. He doesn’t need anything to change.That is, until he almost accidentally gets into a bar fight with an infuriatingly attractive river guide and then starts seeing said river guide everywhere and it turns out he's less infuriating but still definitely attractive, and, well—maybe Keith hasn’t been doing that fine. Maybe one thing can change.Or: Keith and Lance fall into hate and then into love in quick succession. Also, there’s truck sex.
Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 109
Kudos: 418





	1. Rock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey I was in the desert a lot this fall and this AU was all I could think about so I hope you enjoy Keith and Lance being dirtbags and dumbasses and falling in love. This is basically my love letter to the desert, and to all my dirtbag college friends. Thanks to [SirCumference](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirCumference) for the inspiration to write about niche sports, go read her fics NOW.
> 
> There are a lot of climbing terms and also references to specific places in southern Utah in this fic, so there's a glossary of relevant stuff in the end notes. ALSO, I grew up in Utah so I am allowed to make fun of it. 
> 
> Sex scene alert! If you wanna skip it, stop reading at "Keith leans against it and tries to catch his breath" and start up again at "They're both quiet for a long time".

“I’m just not sure,” the woman says for the third time. “This might not be enough.”

“Well,” Keith replies, resisting the urge to faceplant on the counter, “you could always get two.”

She grimaces at him in that particular manner of entitled white people who are wealthy but want to pretend they’re not while they “rough it” in the desert for a few days. “That’s a bit pricey, don’t you think?”

He grits his teeth. “The larger size is an option.”

“That won’t fit in the side pocket of my pack.” She sighs, like Keith is the biggest inconvenience of her day. “I’ll just take the one.”

“Great,” he says. “That’ll be $3.85.”

She very precisely counts out her change and leaves the store with her single can of propane stove fuel. Keith only avoids screaming for the benefit of the guy in the corner, who he’s pretty sure is just taking photos of all the maps in a hiking guide. He should probably try to sell him that hiking guide, but he can’t be bothered.

It’s late March. Keith’s least favorite time of year. The bikers are all back in town, the river guides are hogging the bars on weeknights, and it’s six different colleges’ spring breaks. He hasn’t had a day off in nearly two weeks, because Coran thinks he “connects well with the college folks”. That means he’s good at selling climbing nerds expensive gear and giving beta on nearby routes, and also that girls flirt with him, and then he sells them expensive Patagonia rain jackets. Too bad he’s gay as shit.

Coran bustles in from the back room and slaps him on the back. “What’s with the long face?” He drops a burrito in front of Keith and reaches down for the recycling bin full of receipts. “Eat up. I got your favorite.” 

“Thanks, Coran.” He tears open the foil and takes a massive bite. A drop of sour cream lands on his shirt. “Shit.”

“Language,” Coran chides. “Chin up, my boy—weather forecast’s looking better. You can take the day off tomorrow if you like.” 

“Oh, thanks—yeah, I might.” Even though he’s tired of working, he’s not sure what he’d do with a day off. He only ever climbs on his days off, and he doesn’t want to deal with the tourists right now. Shiro went to Indian Creek a few days ago and said it felt more like a beach in Florida than their favorite backroad climbing spot. He hates climbing with crowds.

“Is that man taking photos of that map? Good lord, it’s only five dollars!”

Cheap white people strike again. Keith shrugs and tries to wipe the sour cream off his shirt as Coran huffs in annoyance and goes to intercept the freeloader.

He’s halfway through the burrito, reading condition reports for the most remote climbing spots he can think of when someone clears their throat in front of him. He starts and drops the rest of the burrito in his lap.

“Fuck!”

“Yikes.”

He looks up.

And it’s fucking _him_. 

By _him_ he means the guy who was holding court at his favorite bar the night before. And the night before that. And the whole week. The guy who was loudly regaling half the room with some story about rafts blowing away. Tall, impossibly perfect tan, windswept hair, wide, white grin. Arm draped around a girl the whole time.

_River Guide_

Keith’s least favorite species. After rattlesnakes.

The river guide smirks at him and sets a straw hat and a bottle of sunscreen on the counter. “Just this.”

Keith looks at the burrito in his lap, then at the straw hat. “I thought you guys never lost your hats.”

The guy’s eyebrows furrow. “What?”

“River guys’ hats never blow off. It’s, like, one of your superpowers.”

The guy cocks his head. “How’d you know I’m a river guide?”

Keith snaps himself out of it with a great deal of effort. “Just a hunch. Uh. That’ll be $26.75.”

The guy counts out exact change. What is it with people today? He wiggles his fingers in farewell. “Thanks, man.”

“Yeah,” Keith says, and goes back to his burrito.

Fucking river guides.

* * *

This wasn’t the plan.

Not that he’d really had a plan. What does a kid in foster care plan for? Not being in foster care? Running away? Tracking down a mother who melted into thin air a decade ago?

No. There was no plan. And where he’s ended up still came out of left field.

When people ask where he’s from he still says Texas, though Texas is nothing but windswept memories now—dust and the tall spears of agave, the smell of his father—woodsmoke, cheap deodorant, the juniper berries he used to chew in lieu of smoking. His smile, brief, always brilliant. He hasn’t been back since his dad died. He was placed in a foster home in eastern New Mexico and on from there, Texas fading behind him.

It figures he'd end up back in the desert. It smells the same here, in the height of summer. Juniper and sagebrush and heat.

Foster care was a series of mistakes. Fighting and running, running and fighting. Until Shiro.

It really begins and ends with Shiro. He can blame him.

It wasn’t the foster parents. They were average. Maybe slightly above average. Enough food. His own bed. Christmas presents. They were just disengaged. Didn’t care much about what he did or didn’t do, unless he was fucking up, which he did frequently. There were three of them there, while Keith lived with them. Perfect Eliza, about to go to college. More perfect Shiro, obsessed with astronomy and physics, linebacker for the football team, kind to a fault. And then Keith. The problem. Barely passing his classes, smoking weed all the time. A chip on his shoulder the size of a boulder.

It was the first home he hadn’t tried to run from. Because of Shiro. Shiro, who’d looked at Keith and saw something worthwhile. Keith still doesn’t get it, but he’s grateful. 

It was Shiro who first took him climbing. Maybe he was just desperate to stop Keith from coming home from school smelling like weed and getting in screaming matches with their foster parents. Just wanted to give him something to do after school. Whatever the impetus, Keith tagged along to the climbing gym for three years, middle school into high school. It kept him in place for a year after Shiro left for Cal Poly, climbing for the gym’s team and making his way through high school. Still barely passing—but Shiro went to college, so Keith wanted to go to college, too.

Still, it didn’t last. He got a new foster brother who kicked the shit out of him in the backyard for being a faggot, and he ran. Three more foster homes. A year of community college in Oregon, close to the ocean. Then Shiro went insane and decided he’d rather get a job with the Park Service than actually make money so he could spend all his free time climbing in Southern Utah of all places. Keith made it through another half semester before he dropped out and showed up a week later at Shiro’s door.

He’d never even climbed outside of a gym before he ended up in Moab. Four years later, and he hasn’t left. He lives in a rundown old house backed up against the cliffs with Shiro, Shiro’s boyfriend Adam, and their friend Matt. He works at the outdoor gear store, he takes a class through USU every so often, and he climbs. Over the years, he’s even made some friends. He climbs with Allura, Coran’s terrifyingly competent goddaughter who spends her summers working at the store, and her girlfriend Romelle. He's friends with Hunk, who builds custom mountain bikes at the shop down the street and moonlights as a baker at his girlfriend Shay’s bakery. He has a love/hate relationship with the bartender Rolo at the bar near his house. He and Rizavi from the co-op screw around with brewing beer in the backyard. It’s good. It’s turned out better than most other things in his life.

Shiro wants him to go back to school in Salt Lake or Denver, somewhere bigger. He thinks Moab’s too small for Keith. Keith likes it, though. Even in summer, when its a hundred and ten degrees and the town drowns in cranky tourists. Even in winter, when it’s too icy to climb for weeks on end. He likes the messiness, the gritty mix of Mormons and hippies and dirtbags and rich people who never quite manage to make the place hip. Seedy hotels and fancy resorts, gross bars and Mormon ward houses, bike shops and decent Mexican food. Yeah, Grindr in Southern Utah leaves something to be desired, but he’s got a nice dildo collection and Pornhub and a constant stream of outdoorsy closeted college boys who have nothing to fear from a one night hookup in a town they’re passing through. He’s happy. He doesn’t have much of a plan moving forward, but he figures he’ll just keep doing what he’s doing until he dies in his mid thirties from some stupid climbing accident. If he hits thirty-six or so and that hasn’t happened yet, he’ll reevaluate. For now, it’s enough.

* * *

He goes to the bar on Friday night with James, his least favorite drinking companion, but also the one that’s always down to go out. He figures it’s safe. River companies make big money from weekend overnight trips, so most of the guides probably won’t be in town. Just annoying tourists. That, he can handle.

“I don’t get your problem,” James says as Keith shoulders the door of the bar open. It’s pouring rain out. Coran was wrong about the forecast. “River guides are hot. Unfailingly.”

“They’re assholes, They live here for eight months of the year and think they’re hot shit.”

“Odds are some of them are gay. Or at least bi. You could get some action if you didn’t write them all off.”

“The girls are all bi. The guys are all aggressively heterosexual.”

“Don’t be heterophobic, Keith,” Rolo tells him from behind the bar. If Keith didn’t know he was joking he might punch him, because that’s the kind of bullshit people say in Utah. Rolo just smirks at his thunderous expression. “The usual?”

James claps him on the shoulder. “Make it shots to start, man. Keith’s in a bad mood and I want him drunk faster so he doesn’t accidentally incinerate me with his gaze.”

“Are you paying?” Keith asks. James rolls his eyes “One round. Just because it seems like you’ve had a rough week.”

Sometimes he doesn’t hate James. “Fine. Thanks.”

“Oh yeah,” Rolo says. “I see what you mean.” Ignoring Keith’s glare, he pours three shots of the bar’s worst whiskey. “Tell you what, boys. Those are on me.”

“You’re not supposed to drink on the job,” James points out, ever the stickler for rules.

“Yeah, but tonight’s the first night of Jeep Week, and fuck me if I’m going into that sober.” He knocks back his shot, winks at them, and heads to the other end of the bar. “I’ll get you your beers in a minute,” he calls over his shoulder.

James bumps his shot against Keith’s. “To hot river guides,” he says.

“No,” Keith says, and knocks it back, wincing as it burns down his throat. “God, that’s awful.”

“Yeah,” James says. “Free, though.”

The nurse their first beers as the bar starts filling up around them. Sure enough, plenty of people talking about Jeep Week. Their second beer, James spends talking about mountain biking and his plans to ride the White Rim trail, which Keith couldn’t care less about, but at least it means he’s not talking about girls, until he is—that’s the third beer. Halfway through his diatribe on how to get Mormon girls to hook up with you, Keith remembers why he doesn’t like drinking with James. Thankfully, he’s three beers and a shot in, so he can kind of tune it out. He’s peacefully contemplating the idea of a summer backpacking trip in the Tetons when he sees him.

“No,” he gasps out, interrupting James’ five-step process on how to pretend you grew up Mormon.

“I know,” James says, sounding smug. “All you really have to do is say you fell by the wayside in college but really are looking to bring Jesus back into your life and they just—“

“No—they—the river guides are supposed to be out on overnighters! It’s Friday!” Specifically one river guide. Tall. Tan. Good hair. 

“Uh—did you notice the weather? They probably cancelled the trips. Tourists don’t like camping in forty-degree thunderstorms.”

“No,” Keith moans, dropping his head in his hands. “I forgot about the rain.”

“It’s literally, like, two of them. Not a mob.”

“Yeah, but it’s _him_ again.” Honestly, Keith wouldn’t even be bothered by it if the guy hadn’t come into the shop two more times in the last three days and been cocky, dismissive, and obnoxious both times. He’d bought nothing but more sunscreen the second time. How much sunscreen does a guy need?  


Keith asked him as much, because fuck customer service. The guy just grinned, leaned way into his comfort zone, pointed at his own face, and said, “skin this perfect doesn’t take care of itself”. Then he winked and walked out. _Winked_.

Keith hates him.

“Dude,” James says. “Chill.”

Keith isn’t good at being chill, but he tries. They order another beer and he ignores the river guides at the other end of the bar, specifically that river guide, and tries to pretend like he's interested in whatever James is talking about. Thankfully, the Jeep Week chatter nicely drowns out whatever the river guides are talking about.

Eventually James sees someone he knows from the bike shop and leaves Keith alone to nurse his beer. He watches the soccer game on the TV behind the bar with minimal interest and orders another even though he knows he probably shouldn’t. He’s contemplating a peaceful walk home and the tupperware of leftover noodles he knows Shiro left in the fridge when someone bumps into him and, abruptly, his back is sopping wet.

“Oh, shit—sorry,” someone says, and then—“Oh. It’s you. Mullet.”

He turns and—of course. “Mullet?”

River Guy smirks. “I said what I said.”

“It’s not a mullet! And you just dumped your entire beer on me!”

“Yeah, and I said sorry.” River guy is swaying slightly, definitely drunk, which is impressive considering he’s only been here for about thirty minutes. “Lighten up.”

“ _Lighten up_?” he asks incredulously. “I—you—“

“Hey, look, I’ll buy you a beer to make up for it. Maybe if you’re drunk you won’t be so grumpy, huh?”

Keith slides off his stool to stand face to face with him, anger simmering in his stomach. To his immense displeasure, River Guy has two inches on him. “What the fuck is your problem?”

The smirk slides off River Guy’s lips and he takes a half step forward. They’re nose to nose, and his eyes are very pretty—dark hazel with golden flecks, lighter on the edges of the irises. He catches a whiff of him. Sunscreen and rain. “What’s _your_ problem, dude? You’re the one who glares at me whenever I set foot in your stupid store!”

Right. They’re fighting. He is not attracted to River Guy. He’s just drunk. “You’re the one who comes in like you own the place. You guides are all the same.”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

Their noses are practically touching. Half the bar patrons are looking at them now, and from behind him he can hear Rolo hiss “ _Keith_ ,” under his breath. His tone says _I don’t want to ban you from this bar for life, but if you get into a fight here again, even if you didn’t start it, I will kick you out forever._

Keith doesn’t want to get kicked out of his favorite bar, but he also really hates River Guy. 

He steps fully into River Guy’s space and shoves his shoulder, sending him backwards a few steps. “Just stay away from me, okay? Find another place to buy your sunscreen.”

River Guy’s normally cheerful expression is dark, and, if Keith was sober enough to analyze it, he’d probably notice it’s eighty percent confused. He’s not sober enough. So when River Guy steps back up to him, plants a hand in the center of his chest, and pushes him, it just stokes the anger brewing in his stomach. Keith stumbles back into the edge of the bar and knocks over his stool in the process. The onlookers let out a collective “ _ooohhh_ ” and he clenches his fists, ready to punch River Guy in his pretty, upturned nose—he’s got plenty of practice punching assholes. Then, abruptly, James is between him and River Guy, grabbing his upper arm and hauling him bodily away.

“Get off me!”

“Not a chance. Sorry folks, nothing more to see here. Rolo—sorry.”

“What the fuck, James?”

“Keith, you are not about to get in a bar fight again over a fucking river guide,” James mutters in his ear as he propels him out into the rain, shoving his jacket at him. “We’re going home.”

“ _He_ started it! He spilled his entire beer on me!”

“Yeah, and then you took it from there. Come on, man. You’re drunk. Just go home and chill out.”

One of the benefits of Rolo’s bar is it’s only a few blocks from his house, so it doesn’t take long for James to drag him the rest of the way there and drop him off. Keith goes inside without even saying goodbye. He’ll feel bad about it tomorrow.

Once inside, he collapses on the couch, sopping wet, head swimming. It’s late. The house is dark. Kosmo lifts his head from his doggy bed in the corner and drops it back down almost immediately, sighing.

He can hear Adam and Shiro on the other side of the wall. Whatever they’re doing, it’s coming to the end, and Shiro is gasping over and over again “ _I love you, I love you I love you I love you—“_

Must be nice.

* * *

He wakes up at 7:30 the next morning on the couch with a pounding headache and Kosmo’s tongue in his face. It feels like something died in his mouth. 

“Morning, sunshine,” Shiro says from the kitchen. “You reek.”

“Ffugh,” Keith groans into the couch cushion. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work in twenty minutes?”

Keith shoots upright, which immediately worsens his headache. “ _Fuck_!”

The euphoria-turned-anger of last night completely erased the memories of his promise to cover Kinkade’s Saturday morning shift—the worst shift there is. Kinkade covers his shifts fairly frequently, so he can’t bail on him—but right now, he feels like if he stands up he’s going to puke, and then pass out.

Shiro comes to stand over him, nudging Kosmo away with his foot. “What the hell happened to you last night?”

“I died.”

“Great. Go take a shower.”

Keith squints at him through the sun streaming in the windows. “Why are you even awake right now?”

Shiro ruffles his hair and turns back to the kitchen. “Adam and I are heading to Fisher. Trying to get an early start.”

Keith gets laboriously to his feet and winces as his stomach rolls with nausea. “Are you insane? It’s Saturday, and everyone’s on spring break right now! Fisher will be packed.”

“Yeah, well, some of us work on weekdays and have to do our best. Besides, I don’t think climbing with other people is that bad! You get to know people in the community that way.”

“You are so weirdly nice and social.”

“Take a _shower_ , Keith.”

He drags himself to the bathroom and narrowly avoids puking in the shower. It’s the type of hangover where you’re nauseous and _will_ puke if you try to drink coffee to wake yourself up, but won’t puke otherwise. It’s the worst kind, because usually if you puke you feel at least marginally better. Keith doesn’t even have time to try to induce it.

“Eat some breakfast before you go!” Shiro yells at him as he bangs out the door.

“No time!”

“It’s a proven scientific fact that not eating breakfast increases your risk of heart disease!”

“Thanks, Shiro. Good luck at Fisher. Bring Kosmo, will you? He hasn’t gotten out in a while.”

The rain stopped sometime in the night and the sun’s out, puddles drying rapidly in the already strong sunlight. The cool morning air wakes him up a bit, though it doesn’t lessen the pounding in his head. The gnarled apple trees scattered around town are blooming and the fluff from the cottonwood trees floats on the air and collects in drifts in the gutters. The high peaks of the La Sals stand stark white against the blue sky. If he forgets about river guides and college kids, he actually does love spring in the desert.

He’s in a marginally better mood by the time he gets to work, though it’s immediately ruined by the number of people in the store. The first sunny Saturday all month and people are shopping for outdoor gear instead of actually going outside.

His head is killing him and he still feels like he might puke. Sue him if he's not feeling stoked on customer service. 

By around eleven he’s ready to curl up underneath the desk and fall asleep. He knows he’s being an absolute ass with customers. Even Kinkade, who barely talks to people, would have sold more. Thank god Coran’s out today, or he would have gotten fired an hour in.

By some mercy of the gods, Hunk comes in around noon and sets a muffin and a cup of coffee down in front of him.

“Hey, bud, you look—oh, woah, you look like shit! What happened to you?”

Keith takes a moment to rest his head on the blessedly cool countertop. “Don’t ask.”

Hunk pokes the top of his head. “I really have to.”

Keith groans, takes a sip of coffee, waits to make sure his stomach doesn’t fully rebel, and finally meets Hunk’s eyes.

“I sort of almost got into a bar fight last night. And I mixed beer and whiskey.”

Hunk groans. “Dude! Not again! At some point your luck is gonna run out and someone who isn’t Rolo is gonna be bartending and then you’re gonna get banned for life—“

“I know, I know, I’m dumb—it was just—this river guide was driving me crazy—“

“It’s always the river guides! What _is it_ with you?”

“Yeah, I know, but this guy’s been antagonizing me for weeks! He keeps coming in here and buying like one thing, and then last night he spilled his beer on me and then told _me_ to lighten up when I was pissed about it! _And_ said I have a mullet. I just haven’t had a haircut in awhile! How was I supposed to react?”

“I mean, the mullet thing’s debatable—“ Hunk starts, and then freezes, mouth open in an exaggerated O. “Wait—wait. You’re telling me— _you’re_ Hot and Angry?”

Keith chokes on his second sip of coffee. “ _Excuse me_?”

“Hot and Angry. That’s what Lance has been calling you for the last month. Oh my god, I’m such an idiot; he kept talking about the guy at the outdoor store and I didn’t even connect the dots but—I mean, Hot and Angry? Of course he meant you!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Keith asks. “And who’s Lance?”

“The guy you almost beat up at the bar last night!”

“The guy—the—you know River Guy?”

“Know him? He’s only been my best friend since Kindergarten!”

This is all a lot to process, and Keith’s head still hurts. A lot. He sets it back down on the counter. “Since when did your best friend since Kindergarten live here?”

“Since I told him the river company had an opening this spring. He just finished school and wanted to move back out west, and I thought he’d like it here. Haven’t seen him much since he moved for college, so it’s been great to have him back around. I’m actually surprised you haven’t run into each other before now, if you’d come to that potluck I had a few weeks ago this probably wouldn’t have happened….”

“Well. I’m happy for you.”

Hunk shuffles around and clears his throat after a moment. “You know…Lance means well. He’s just bad at communicating sometimes. He gets stressed out about what other people think of him and reads way too much into things and then gets weird and defensive for no reason. He probably just thought you were cool and then way overcompensated, which is why you got such weird vibes from him. But he’s not a bad guy.”

Keith rubs at his eyes. Anyone who’s best friends with Hunk certainly can’t be all bad, because Hunk is a saint on earth and also doesn’t put up with much bullshit. And, if he thinks back, it’s not like Lance ever said or did anything particularly antagonistic. He was just a little cocky, a little annoying, and then spilled his beer on accident.

In retrospect, perhaps Keith was overreacting. Slightly.

“Well,” Keith says eventually, “I was drunk. And I do hate river guides.”

Hunk nods agreeably and takes a bite of Keith’s muffin.

“And he did spill his beer on me.”

Hunk nods, chewing.

“And he made fun of my hair.”

Hunk nods again. Keith gives up.

“Okay, fine, I kind of yelled at him for no reason. Apologize to him for me, would you? I told him not to come back here but Coran would kill me if he found out I actually told a customer to stop shopping with us.”

“I’m not going to apologize to him for you,” Hunk says, and Keith wilts slightly. “I’ll give you his phone number. You can apologize yourself.”

“What? No way!”

Hunk nods sagely. “Yes. That’s the best way for you both to get over yourselves. I think you could be friends, if you started out on the right foot.”

“I don’t need more friends,” Keith says mulishly. Hunk just rolls his eyes and pulls out his phone. Moments later, Keith’s buzzes with a text.

“That’s his number,” Hunk says. “Text him, Keith. It’ll make you feel better.”

“I’m not feeling bad!” Keith says at a slightly higher volume than necessary. 

“Your dark circles say different,” Hunk says, and then walks out of the shop, leaving Keith alone with his headache and a rising tide of guilt.

* * *

Three days later, Keith sits at the kitchen table, staring at his phone. He’s been tweaking the draft of a text for almost twenty four hours, agonizing over word choice and whether he should bother sending it at all. After all, Hunk was kind of guilting him into it, and he doesn’t owe Lance anything. He’s the one who went home soaked in beer.

The crawling guilt and annoyance in his stomach say different, though. So, after giving the text one last read, he sends it, sticks his phone in their junk drawer so he doesn’t have to look at it, and starts making dinner.

He waits for a response all evening, but nothing comes. He goes to bed wishing he hadn’t sent it all and wakes up the next morning, seven minutes before his alarm goes off, to the quiet _ping_ of an incoming message.

Huh. That’s…better than he expected. Usually straight dudes are way more aggressive and far less willing to admit their own mistakes. It’s…refreshing.

So that’s how he finds himself sitting at a picnic table across from Lance, apology beer in hand, laughing as Lance tells a joke. It’s not like much has changed. Lance is still annoyingly tall, annoyingly tan, and annoying in general. Annoyingly good looking, too, and Keith’s been caught more than once staring. He’s also, as it turns out, pretty funny when given a chance, extremely kind, and good with kids, specifically, Shay’s younger brother who’s tagged along with them. “I’ve got a little niece and nephew at home,” Lance explains, a wistful expression on his face. “I love them at that age.”

Joining them alongside Hunk and Shay are Ina, who works at the bike shop with Hunk, and, to Keith’s surprise, Matt’s little sister Katie. “You know each other, too?” he’d asked when they arrived, and she’d rolled her eyes. “We guide together.”

“Wait—you’re guiding this season?”

“Jesus, Keith, do you live under a rock? I’ve been over to your house like five times since the season started and mentioned it _every time_.” 

“Oh. Guess I just…missed that.” She rolls her eyes again and punches him in the shoulder, which actually really hurts. For as small as she is, she’s absolutely jacked. He probably should have guessed she was guiding from the size of her biceps alone.

“Be careful, Pidge,” Lance says, patting her shoulder. “I hear Keith hates river guides.” Keith bristles as Katie—preferred nickname Pidge—laughs. “Oh, yeah,” she says. “Believe me. I know. But you wanna know _why_ he hates river guides?”

“Pidge,” Keith pleads, though he knows it won’t make a difference. She grins at him wickedly and leans close to Lance.

“He’s afraid of water. He’s just jealous of us.”

“That’s not why!”

“It kind of is,” Hunk says from behind, patting him on the shoulder. “There’s a table open over there. Let’s snag it!”

He’s still sort of mad at Pidge for giving away his deep, dark, absolutely accurate secret, but as they eat and drink he feels himself start to relax. These are his friends, and Lance doesn’t seem to be holding a grudge, and he’s having a good time. After they finish eating, Hunk and Shay wander over to the playground with her brother and Pidge and Ina fall into a conversation about drone tech that goes completely over Keith’s head. He and Lance are quiet for awhile, sipping their beers, and then Lance leans across the table towards him.

“So,” he says. “How long have you been in Moab?”

Keith starts slightly, a bit zoned out. “What? Oh, um…almost five years now. Well. Four and a half.”

“What brought you here?”

Keith shrugs. He never wants to get too in depth about the winding road that brought him to this place. “My brother moved here after college. I wasn’t really…passionate about what I was doing, and I wanted to climb down here, so I moved a few months later.”

“Cool,” Lance says. “So…you’re big into climbing, then?”

Keith shrugs again. “I guess. I mean, I do it a lot, yeah. I haven’t done much outside of this area, though. But there’s enough to do around here that you couldn’t climb all the routes in a lifetime. It’s world-class. Plus, I don’t know—I guess I just really like the desert. I’ve lived other places in the Southwest, but nowhere like this. It’s hard to leave once you come.”

“Yeah, man,” Lance agrees. “I love it down here. Used to come a lot with my family, growing up, always thought it’d be cool to live here. That’s cool, with the climbing. Never got super into it myself.” He grimaces. “Not the biggest fan of heights.”

Keith takes another sip of his diminishing beer, relaxing further. Talking with Lance is fairly easy, even though they’re not really talking about anything important. Too often, he feels like human interaction is an elaborate performance, conversations experiences he wishes he could rehearse before having them for real. It doesn’t feel like that with Lance, maybe because they’ve already gotten over their awkward phase in the worst way possible. “Have you ever climbed?” he asks, out of genuine curiosity. “It’s kind of hard to live here at our age and never do it.”

“Yeah, in gyms a bit. I went once outside, but I chickened out after one route.”

“Oh, you should try it more! There are lots of good beginner routes around here.”

“Yeah? Like where?”

Lance then proceeds to actually listen with interest as Keith goes full-on climbing nerd on him. He knows he has the tendency to go off once he gets started, but Lance doesn’t seem to mind, asking questions every so often. Keith tells him about Indian Creek, about routes in Arches, about the climbing trip he and Shiro did in the Land of Standing Rocks, deep in Canyonlands. “The best easy climb is South Sixshooter, in Indian Creek,” he finishes. “Totally doable for someone with your experience. I’d take you, if you ever wanted to do it.” Then his brain catches up with his mouth and he grinds to a halt. Less than a week ago he almost beat this guy up in a bar. Now he’s offering to take him climbing? What the hell is he thinking?

But Lance smiles. “Man, I’d have to get my courage up, but I have to say it sounds pretty sick. If I was gonna go with anyone, I’d go with you. You sound like you know your shit.”

“Yeah, well.” Keith runs his hand through his hair, knocking some of the strands into his face to hide his blush. “Anytime. Um. Anyway. I should stop talking. How’d you start guiding? How’d you meet Hunk?”

Lance grins. “Oh man, I don’t even remember how I met Hunk. I don’t remember ever not knowing him. We met in Kindergarten.”

Keith nods. ‘Yeah, he told me that.”

“Yeah. Fast friends. Two brown kids in a sea of white Mormons, you know. Got better in middle school and high school, but, you know, friendships forged in fire and all that. We were both into mountain biking and kayaking, too, so we spent a lot of time in the mountains and up on the Provo River, and down here on the Green…. Like I said, my family’s been coming down here for ages. We used to come and do river trips over Memorial Day weekend, and then I started coming down more often with friends in high school. I’ve just…always really loved it. Loved the water. I was born in Miami, but we moved to Salt Lake when I was really young and I think I’ve always missed the ocean.”

“Miami to Salt Lake. That’s…different.”

Lance shrugs, smiles that brilliant smile. “Yeah, for sure. I don’t know, though. I don’t mind Salt Lake. I missed it a lot when I moved for college.”

“Hunk mentioned you went somewhere back east?”

“Yeah, Madison. I spent a lot of time guiding in the Boundary Waters in the summer. It’s how I got the job here.”

“Wow,” Keith says. “I’ve never been east of Texas.”

“Oh, that’s cool though!” Lance says, face lighting up. “I’ve never been to Texas! I’ve wanted to go to Big Bend for awhile. What’s it like?”

And just like that, the discomfort descends. Keith drops his gaze, stomach twisting up in itself. “I, uh. Don’t remember much. I was born there, but my dad died when I was pretty young, and I haven’t been back.” _Please don’t ask more. Please don’t. Please don’t._

“Oh,” Lance says quietly, enthusiasm gone. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he says quickly. “It was a long time ago.”

“Still,” Lance says. They’re quiet for a moment. Keith drains the rest of his beer in one long gulp and Lance watches him carefully, eyes glinting in the glow of the twinkle lights strung above the picnic tables.Keith knows the silence has stretched for too long, knows he should say something in reply, but he comes up empty. Abruptly, he’s exhausted. 

“Well hey,” Lance says eventually, once too much time has passed for Keith to speak up. “If I let you take me climbing, you have to let me take you on the river. Deal?”

Mild panic flashes through him. “I—uh, don’t know about that. As Pidge so kindly informed you, I’m not a huge fan of water.” That’s putting it mildly. He hates water. That’s why he’s stuck to the desert for the majority of his life. The year and a bit he spent in Oregon, he barely ever went to the beach. 

“Yeah,” Lance says. “A lot of people say that. And, hey, no judgement—totally valid! But it’s really all a matter of knowing the water you’re dealing with, of knowing the river. And the river here—you ever been to Stillwater Canyon?”

Keith shakes his head. He’s heard of it, seen it from above from Island in the Sky or the White Rim, but never been down to the shore or on the water itself. 

Lance closes his eyes and smiles, his usually wide grin turned into something soft and gentle. “Oh, dude—Stillwater in the middle of the summer. It’s low flow, so you’re moving slow, and it’s shaded and cool down there at the bottom of the canyon, while the Rim’s over a hundred degrees. It’s the most peaceful place in the world.” He opens his eyes and his smile widens into his usual white-toothed grin. “I have to show you.”

“Maybe,” Keith allows uncomfortably. Truthfully, the idea of a cool oasis at the bottom of a canyon in the hottest part of the summer does sound…nice. And Keith doesn’t mind water as much if it’s shallow enough to only go up to mid thigh. And has very little current. And is preferably less than twenty feet wide. He’s alright with puddles and ponds. Nowhere on the Colorado or the Green really fits that specific description, but…

Maybe he wouldn’t mind a private guided tour of Stillwater Canyon if Lance was the guide in question.

“Reel it back,” he mutters to himself, because he needs to chill. He. Needs. To. Chill. 

“What?” Lance asks.

“Really sounds nice,” Keith says a little louder, and Lance’s face blooms back into a smile. He sticks out a hand across the table. “It’s a deal, then! You drag me up a desert tower, I drag you down Stillwater Canyon.”

Keith’s mouth quirks up at the corners against his will. He reaches across the table and shakes Lance’s hand firmly. His palm is dry and heavily calloused, probably from the oars of the boats he guides, and his fingers are long and delicate, cool against the back of Keith’s palm. “It’s a deal,” he replies.

Lance grins. Keith’s heart stutters.

This could be bad.

* * *

“I agreed to go on a _river trip!”_ Keith moans to Shiro a week later as they unload rope, cams, and slings from the back of Shiro’s Outback. Adam’s in the front seat, still drinking coffee and listening intently to an NPR story about the Svalbard seed vault and climate change, because that’s the kind of shit that gets him going. 

Shiro shakes his head. “You really must be into him.”

“I’m _not_!” Keith says loudly. “I’m not into him at all! I just went insane!”

“I’ve tried to get you to float Stillwater with us at least three times,” Shiro says, dropping their last rope on the pavement and slamming the back of the car shut. “Adam! Come on!”

“I know,” Keith moans again. “I went insane. He was just _smiling_ , and he said he wanted to do South Sixshooter with me even though he’s afraid of heights and I didn’t know what to do!”

“You’re whipped,” Adam informs him, finally climbing out of the car and taking the pack Shiro hands him. “Didn’t you hate river guides a week ago?”

“I still hate river guides,” Keith mutters. 

“Sure you do,” Adam smirks. They pick their way down the trail from the parking lot towards Owl Rock, an incredibly phallic-looking tower that makes for an easy morning climb. “I don’t know what you’re trying to ask me, Keith,” Shiro says from behind him. “It sounds like you dug your own grave, and it also sounds like this guy isn’t too bad and you wouldn’t mind spending more time with him. A trip down Stillwater wouldn’t kill you.”

“It might,” Keith retorts. “I’m asking you how I get out of it!”

“You don’t” Shiro replies. “Unless you want to sound like an asshole.”

Keith groans.

“Look,” Adam says, turning as they scramble up to the base of the tower. “Odds are, he’s not going to take you up on the Sixshooter climb. River guides don’t exactly have a lot of free time, right? And if he doesn’t take you up on it, you’re not obligated to take him up on the Stillwater trip. Just don’t mention either of them again, and odds are neither will happen. Okay? So calm down.”

The thing is, Keith muses as he starts the climb, Shiro belaying him from below; the idea of showing Lance South Sixshooter sounds pretty nice. Fun. As much as Keith hates climbing around other people or in crowds, he loves showing people climbing, introducing them to new routes, seeing the looks on their faces when the reach the top and see the desert spread out below them. And Lance—he has a feeling Lance would like it. It takes everyone a bit to get over the vertigo caused by hanging from a rope anchored by bits of metal hundreds of feet off the ground, but once you’re over it, you can’t help but be awed by the experience. He loves climbing because it brings him closer to the landscape, pushes him into the rocks themselves, forces him to feel the curves of the stone and the subtleties of erosion with his hands, his feet, his entire body. It’s hard to believe anyone who loves the desert could sit on top of South Sixshooter with Indian Creek spread below them and not feel the same way.

Speaking of the view of the desert from the top of a tower—he loves the view of Arches from the Owl. The twisted sandstone of this section of the park falls off into canyons and washes sloping down to the Colorado, and across the valley the walls of Canyonlands rise. He clips into the top bolt and yells for Adam to come up, keeping an eye on both him and the view as he climbs quickly and efficiently. Soon, Shiro joins them and they all three scramble up the easy slope to the top and sit shoulder to shoulder, watching the park come alive below them. 

At one point, inevitably, some tourists start taking pictures of them from the parking lot. Shiro smiles and waves. Adam scowls. Keith tries to hide behind their collective bulk. Eventually, he sighs. “We should start down, anyway. I’ve got the afternoon shift.”

The descent takes no time at all, and they’re in the car and nearly out of the park when Shiro brings up the Lance topic again. “Look,” he says. “I know you didn’t ask, but…don’t close yourself off to anything, okay? I know you two got off on the wrong foot, but he sounds nice and it sounds like you had a good time talking with him. If you like him, don’t shut yourself away before you even get a chance to know each other, okay?”

Keith groans and hides his face in his hands. “ _Please_ don’t give me a dad talk about this. I know. I know I’m prickly, and weird, and people usually don’t like me, but—“

“I’m not saying any of those things and you know it—“

“ _But_ I don’t like him! I don’t even know him! And I’m not shutting out anything. I just…don’t want to go on a river trip. For completely unrelated reasons.”

“Right,” Shiro says, but he still doesn’t sound convinced.

* * *

Turns out Adam’s advice is both Bad and Wrong and also Useless, because a few more Taco Tuesdays spent chatting with Lance and having a genuinely good time go by, and then Keith wakes up to a text message that sends him directly into a panic.

He vaults out of bed and shoves his phone in Shiro’s face. “What do I do?”

Shiro squints and the screen and pushes it away from his nose. “You tell him you’ll take him. Or you tell him you’re busy and stall for time.”

“Oh, god.”

“Tell him you’ll take him,” Shiro says, “and stop ruining my relaxing weekend morning with your overanalyzing.”

“What was I thinking?” Keith cries, pulling at his hair. Shiro sighs, puts down his coffee, and rubs at his temples. His eyes look tired in the way that makes Keith feel bad for existing and bothering him. “Look,” he says. “You’ve been hanging out with him multiple times a week—“

“Never one on one!”

“—you like talking with him, you have a lot in common, and two nights ago you came home drunk, informed me he’s the most beautiful person you’ve ever laid eyes on, and passed out on our bed. So you take him to Sixshooter, you spend some more time together, you have a fun, laid-back climb, and you see how it goes. What’s the problem?”

Bless Shiro and his reasoning. He brinks Keith back from the brink. He blinks, regulates his breathing, and realizes, “I—I guess there isn’t one.”

“Right.”

“Sorry.”

Shiro holds up a hand. “Do not apologize to me. I’m always here to help you work through these things.” 

* * *

On Tuesday afternoon, Lance comes into the shop. He grins his megawatt grin, drums his fingers on the counter, and says, “you ready for tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Keith says. “Why are you here?”

Lance flicks him on the forehead. “Always so blunt. I am here for a helmet. Hunk informs me it is essential for the….woah.” He trails off, eyes fixed somewhere behind Keith. Keith turns and, sure enough, it’s Allura, coming in from the office with an armful of backordered Nalgenes that just came in that morning. Lance’s mouth hangs open as he stares at her. It’s not an uncommon reaction to one’s first sighting of Allura, but a pang goes through Keith’s stomach. Sometimes he forgets that Lance is definitely straight and that his stupid little crush is pathetic and going nowhere.

“Hi,” Lance says, voice dripping with charm. He holds out a hand. “I’m Lance. And who might you be?”

Keith wants to die.

Allura raises one perfect brow, arms too full of water bottles to take Lance’s hand. “Allura,” she replies.

“Allura, huh,” Lance says, putting down his hand and leaning against the counter. “Do you work for NASA? Cause you’re outta this world. Lemme buy you a drink sometime?”

Screw instilling a love for climbing in him. Keith is going to let him fall off a cliff tomorrow.

Allura raises her other eyebrow. “Lance, was it?” Her eyes flick over him, up and down, and he preens at the attention, smirking at her. “Your ears are a little big for my taste.” Then she brushes past him, towards the water bottle section. Lance stands still for a moment, red creeping into his cheeks, before turning back to Keith. “What’s wrong with my ears?”

“She’s right,” Keith says, because he’s feeling mean. Lance’s rapidly wilting expression instills some compassion, though. “Don’t worry. It’s not you.” It probably is, at least a little. Allura hates flirts, and also bad pickup lines. “She’s got a girlfriend.”

Lance slumps against the counter with exaggerated drama. “Why are the best ones always taken?” His eyes dart over to Keith. “I suppose you’ve got someone.”

“What?” Keith says intelligently.

“I suppose you’re dating someone, too,” Lance says, gesturing wildly. “Everyone hot in this town seems to be.”

“I—no, I’m not. Wait, hot?”

Lance rolls his eyes, suddenly looking a lot more cheerful. “Oh, don’t be modest. Anyway, climbing helmet?”

Keith doesn’t know what’s going on. “I…have one you can borrow?”

“Oh, sweet. I’ve got a harness and shoes, do I need to bring anything else?”

Slowly, Keith shakes his head. “No…no, I’ve got the rest of the gear. Bring some snacks. A comfortable day pack.”

“Okay. Who’s driving?”

“I, uh. Don’t have a car. So. You?”

Lance nods agreeably, bouncing on the balls of his feet, seemingly completely over the rejection. “Great! I’ll pick you up at eight, then. See you in the morning!”

He bounces out of the shop without a backwards glance. Keith tries to control his breathing. So Lance called him hot. Asked him about his relationship status. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean anything! Keith already knows Lance called him hot, his nickname for him, according to Hunk, was Hot and Angry. Straight guys can call other guys hot! Most of them don’t, but.

* * *

Keith wakes up the next morning viscerally aware of the knowledge that Lance is a) not straight which means b) theoretically Keith’s little crush isn’t a total dead end which makes it about ten times more terrifying and c) said not straight Lance is going to pick him up in thirty minutes and then they are going to spend the entire day together. Alone. Together. 

He wonders if he should fake illness to get out of it, but he pulls himself together eventually and gets out of bed. He brushes his teeth. He piles his gear by the front door. He wrestles his hair into something that isn’t totally embarrassing. He drinks some coffee. He paces the kitchen. Matt forces him to eat some toast. He lets Kosmo out to piss. He double checks his gear. He paces some more. He lets Kosmo back in. Lance is late.

“It’s eight ten, Keith,” Matt says. “That’s not late.”

“Yeah it is,” Keith says, and keeps pacing. Matt rolls his eyes and leaves for work. Shiro and Adam come into the kitchen and force him to sit down. Shiro asks if he has anything for lunch and tells him to make a sandwich when Keith says he’s got granola bars. He drinks some more coffee, and his knee starts bouncing involuntarily. Adam takes away his coffee.

Lance shows up at 8:21, a little red-faced. “Sorry,” he apologizes when Keith answers the door. “Got a little behind schedule.” That’s all he gets out before Kosmo barrels into him and almost knocks him over.

“He likes you,” Keith observes from the doorway as Kosmo attacks Lance’s face with his tongue. “Usually he barks.”

“I’m good with animals. He’s the best dog I’ve ever seen, oh my god. Is he coming?”

“I, uh, hadn’t thought—“

“Please, he needs to come,” Lance begs, and Keith relents easily. Kosmo hasn’t been out on many climbing adventures lately, mostly due to all their work schedules, and he loves Indian Creek. As long as he doesn’t chase any cows, he’s a great hiker and waits patiently at the base of routes while they’re climbing. Keith grabs the leash, a collapsable water bowl, and some treats, and gestures at the pile of gear by the door. Lance’s eyes get wide.

“Why do we need that much stuff? I thought you said it was an easy route!”

“It’s a couple pitches. It’s always good to have an extra rope and some slings. It just looks like a lot.”

Lance looks vaguely sick.

“Don’t think about it too much. Let’s go.”

They both take up armfuls of of gear and trudge outside where Keith stops short at the sight in the driveway.

Lance has a truck, which he knew, because he’s talked about it. What Keith didn’t expect was a clearly spray-panted baby blue Tacoma that looks at least thirty years old, complete with rusty truck topper and a host of bumper stickers. He can’t help but snort.

“Wha—hey! No laughing at Blue!”

“Its name is _Blue_?”

“ _Her_ name is Blue, thank you very much, and you’re hurting her feelings!”

“Oh my god,” Keith says, and swings open the back to reveal a mattress on a wooden frame and piles of gear, boxes of clothing, and cooking supplies shoved beneath. “Oh my god,” he says again, “do you live in your truck?”

It’s supposed to be a joking statement, but Lance shuffles his feet kind of uncomfortably and brushes past Keith, shoving his armful of gear on top of the mattress. “Cheaper than spending my whole salary on seven months of rent here.”

“Oh,” Keith says, feeling sheepish. “I didn’t mean—I mean, it’s cool.”

Lance pauses and looks at him carefully. “You think?”

“Yeah,” Keith says. “I’ve always kind of wanted to dirtbag in a truck.”

Lance smiles. “Yeah, it’s not too bad. I mean, I use Pidge’s shower and crash on her couch sometimes, but I like sleeping in Blue. She’s been good to me.” He looks faraway and wistful for a moment, then seems to snap out of it, knocking a fist against the side of the topper. “Well. Should we get going?”

“Yeah,” Keith says, and guides Kosmo to hop up into the backseat. The cab is cozy, with woven seat covers, an old CD holder on the floor, some water stained books— _Desert Solitaire_ , Terry Tempest Williams essays, _The River Guide to Canyonlands National Park._ A rosary hangs from the rearview mirror. Lance hops in, starts the engine, shifts into gear, and hands Keith a thermos of coffee. “Figured it’s early,” he says, backing out of the driveway with a thump that makes the truck squeak and shifting into third. “That’s what made me late.”

“How dare you,” Keith says, pleased, and takes a sip of coffee. Now that they’re on their way and he’s actually interacting with Lance, his jitters have all but disappeared. 

“Anything for you, man.”

The drive goes easily, the La Sals growing close and then fading behind them as they head south. The sun’s bright, not a cloud in the sky, and Keith feels good. About Lance. About the climb. About the day. Lance keeps up a stream of easy chatter, Kosmo drools on his shoulder, and the coffee wakes him up the rest of the way. He’s looking forward to the climb. No matter how many times he does South Sixshooter, it never gets old. 

Eventually, Lance plugs his phone into the tape deck adapter and starts playing a jarring mix of lo-fi indie, rap, and recent pop hits. Turns out, he can rap most of Kendrick’s songs without missing a beat, and he has Keith in stitches with his Drake impression. He also has a surprisingly nice voice when he drops the act and just sings along quietly. By the time they turn off on the road to Indian Creek, Keith’s having a genuinely good time, and he sort of forgets that Lance is nervous about this whole thing until they pull into the dusty parking area and he starts looking a little sick to his stomach.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Great.”

“You gonna puke?”

“What? No!”

“There’s a garbage can over there.”

“Shut up!”

Keith takes pity. “I promise it’s gonna be fine. I’ve done this route so many times I’d climb it without rope. There’s only a few other cars here, so we’ll have it mostly to ourselves and we can take all the time we need.”

“You’d _climb it without rope_?”

“I just mean I’m really comfortable on it and it’s more of a scramble than a climb most of the way! I wouldn’t actually free solo it.” Really, he probably would, but he won’t tell Lance that. “My point is, it’s going to be fine. _But_ , if you really don’t want to do it, we don’t have to. We could always just hike instead.”

Lance sets his jaw, determined. “No. I want to do it. Let’s go.”

They start up the trail, Kosmo running excited circles around them, sniffing every cairn they pass as they wind their way up the mesa to the base of the Sixshooter peaks. For awhile, they hike in silence, enjoying the sun and the still-cool air of morning. Voices echo across the canyon every so often, other climbers high on the cliffs calling to each other. After reaching the top of the mesa, they start the scramble up the rocky slopes to the towers’ base, laughing as they slide on the loose rocks. Kosmo runs ahead with seemingly no trouble at all while Keith accidentally palms a cactus and Lance spends a few moments fussing over his hand, pulling out spikes and placing bandages that are bound to fall off as they climb. After about an hour, they stand together at the base of the tower, panting. Kosmo flops down in the shade and Keith sets up his water bowl for him and offers a few treats while Lance pats his back haunches. Keith puts his leash on him and secures it to an old bolt at the base of the tower after determining that Kosmo’s current spot will stay in shade for the next few hours.

Above them is a petroglyph of a triangular, humanoid figure etched into the rock, a long wavy line drawn from the base across the rock face. Keith always thought it was a snake. Shiro saw it as the creek that runs below the mesa. The climb starts right above it, Keith explains to Lance as he flakes their ropes and checks his pro one last time. Lance stares up, wide-eyed at the tower of rock vivid against the blue sky.

“Okay,” he says. “So I’ll climb up first and place the gear, and you belay me. Then I’ll belay you from the top. The first pitch is up to that ledge there,” he points up. “Then the second pitch is that sort of sloped saddle, it’s really more of a scramble, only a few technical moves; and then the last pitch is up to the summit. If you need beta, just holler, and we can bail and go down at any point, if you want.”

Lance gulps, nods, stares at the top of the tower, neck craned. 

“Hey,” Keith says, resting a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Just pay attention to the rock. The moves are really obvious. I won’t let you fall.”

“Okay,” Lance says, and loops his rope through his belay device, nodding and Keith. “Climb on.”

Keith does. He climbs slow, triple checks everything, and makes sure he does any weird moves with exaggerated slowness, so Lance can see how to get past the tricky bits. He makes it to the top quickly, clips in, and shouts for Lance to start climbing.

He sees Lance’s shoulders rise and fall 90 feet below in a deep breath and he triple checks his knot before stepping up to the rock. He runs his hands over the sandstone like he’s testing it out, reminding himself of the feel of the grains of sand that separate from the rock as you pass and cling to your skin. Then he starts climbing.

It’s more than clear he’s climbed before, probably more than he admitted to. His movements are practiced and precise, speaking to gym training, but there’s very little fumbling or slipping. His moves are fluid. Keith is impressed. Lance climbs slowly, but doesn’t get stuck on any of the trickier moves and soon joins Keith on the ledge, panting, eyes wide, but smiling.

“That felt pretty good,” he pants, “I thought I’d feel more out of practice.”

Keith just stares at him. “You’ve climbed more than you told me.”

Lance shrugs. “Like I said, I’ve been in gyms. It’s easier to ignore the heights there, I guess. I had some friends who were pretty obsessive in college, went with them fairly often. Still, I—I don’t really know what I’m doing outside. And I don’t really want to look down.”

“Well, keep your eyes off the drop-off across this ledge, then. Then it’s an easy scramble to the third pitch. Ready?”

Lance nods. The rest of the climb goes smoothly, even quickly, especially compared to what Keith was expecting. Even the tricky mantle at the crux of the third pitch doesn’t give Lance much difficulty. Keith gives him a hand as he scrambles to the top and Lance crowds close to him even though the summit is pretty wide. He’s got his eyes firmly fixed on Keith, gaze not even straying to the view. The wind tugs at his hair and his cheeks are flushed and he’s smiling a bit and damn, he’s really pretty.

“Hey,” Keith says, squeezing Lance’s hand, which he hasn’t let go of more because Lance is clinging so hard than the fact that he’d really like to keep holding it just in general. “The rope’s got you. These anchors are good. And I won’t let you fall. Look around.”

Lance squeezes his hand impossibly tighter, and his eyes flick away. He looks north, towards Canyonlands, the pinnacles of the Needles visible across the desert past the North Sixshooter peak, the high Island in the Sky mesa in the distance. On the far horizon, the dark lump of the Henry Mountains rises about the twisted canyons and spires. Lance grins, and then a gust of wind tears at them, fluttering their t-shirts against their chests, and Lance sits down with an audible thump, dragging Keith down with him.

“Easier if I’m sitting,” he says by way of explanation, and then twists the opposite direction, looking out over Indian Creek towards the Abajos. The La Sals rise high over all else, white peaks almost two dimensional against the blue sky.

“Wow,” Lance breathes. “Okay. You’re right. The views are worth it. I might puke, but the view is worth it.”

At this point, Lance seems to realize they’re still holding hands. He flushes and lets Keith’s go, curling his fingers into a fist. Keith’s hand feels cold without the weight of Lance’s palm against his own. 

“Snack?” he offers in an effort to dispel the sudden awkwardness, waving a granola bar in front of Lance. Lance smiles and takes it from him. “Thanks.”

They sit in silence for a long while after that, Lance staring out at the view, Keith lying back, sandstone against his back and cheek, eyes closed against the sun. The wind picks up slightly, nothing dangerous, but enough to brush away the heat before it becomes overwhelming, enough to brush strands of hair against his cheeks and send their rope slapping against the side of the rock. Keith comes close to drifting off, his fitful night of sleep catching up to him, but he forces himself to open his eyes when he feels the boneless relaxation seeping up his limbs.

Blinking against the sun, he catches the edge of Lance’s gaze as it flicks away. His cheeks are flushed, and it’s no longer from exertion. He wonders how long he was looking. Was he looking because he’s interested, or because Keith’s sweaty, sandy, and hasn’t washed his hair in nearly a week?

Probably the second option.

He hauls himself back into a sitting position with a groan, scooting to the edge of the summit and peering down while Lance makes a horrified sort of groaning noise at his proximity to the edge. 300 feet below, a group of four are starting up the slippery talus slope. He checks his phone—they’ve been up here for nearly an hour, and Kosmo’s probably getting antsy.

He gets to his feet, stretching his arms over his head; doesn’t miss Lance’s gaze flicking back to him, up, down. Heat rises to his cheeks and he hopes it can be mistaken for windburn. “We should probably head down,” he says against the fluttering in his stomach. “Another group’s coming.” He steps to the edge and starts fixing their rope to rappel down. Lance joins him after a moment, looking at the chains and carabiners that make up the anchor bolt with significant distrust. “You’re sure that couldn’t break off? The sandstone is so fragile.”

“I’ve rappelled off this bolt a dozen times, and so has Shiro, who’s at least twice your weight.” He knocks his shoulder against Lance’s. “Hey, I’ve been right so far. You haven’t died yet.”

“Going down’s my least favorite part,” Lance groans, but despite his jitters the descent is quick and painless. Keith finished coiling their rope and packing it away right as the other group comes panting to the base of the tower. He keeps Kosmo on the leash so he doesn’t charge the other group and follows Lance as they slip down the talus slope.

At the bottom, Lance turns to him, huge grin splitting his face, and raises both arms in the air, letting out a wild, loud whoop. Kosmo, excited by the noise, jumps around him, barking. Keith stares at him as he continues whooping, jumping up and down. “What?” he asks through the noise. “Are you okay?”

“Am I okay?” Lance yells, hands landing on Keith’s shoulders and shaking him slightly. “ _Am I okay_? My man, I am _more_ than okay! I can’t believe I just did that! That was amazing! I felt like I was gonna pass out for most of the time but _holy shit_ , I did it! You’re a miracle worker!”

“I am?” Keith asks, feeling slightly confused and also disoriented by how close Lance’s face is to his own. “Thanks?”

Lance throws his arms around Keith and hugs him, Keith’s face smashed into his collarbone, nose full of Lance—sweaty, mostly, but, like, not in a bad way? Like, Lance’s sweat smells really good for some reason. Keith kind of wants to keep his nose smashed in Lance’s shirt forever. By the time Lance pulls back, eyes still dancing with excitement, Keith’s head is swimming.

“Uh,” he says intelligently, but his confusion doesn’t seem to bother Lance who’s still grinning like a maniac. He points up at the peak above them. “I was up there! Oh my god, I was _up there_! Keith!”

Keith finally regains enough brainpower to crack a smile. “Yeah, man. You were up there. Good job!”

Lance jumps up and down a few more times, catches Kosmo’s paws as he lunges up with excitement and does a little dance, which delights the dog, and then finally stops moving, hands resting on his hips as he pants slightly, looking back at the spire. “Man, now I wished we’d stayed up there longer. Not sure about the next time I’ll be up on something like that.”

“I’d climb with you anywhere you wanted to go,” Keith says automatically, then winces once again as his brain catches up with his mouth. He sounds desperate. But Lance’s eyes light up and he nods eagerly. “Yeah! I mean, I can’t promise I can do anything much harder than that, but yeah, I want to do more!”

“Cool,” Keith croaks. “Yeah, I’m up for anything.”

Lance grins again, slinging an arm around Keith’s shoulders and practically pulling him down the trail. Kosmo’s still wound up, so after checking for any other people or cows in their vicinity, Keith lets him off the leash to run circles around them again. Lance keeps up a constant stream of chatter all the way back to the truck, going from climbing to rafting to how mad he is about the Bears Ears monument being dismantled to how much he missed mountains in Wisconsin to his siblings and back to climbing. Keith barely has to contribute a word, which he’s honestly happy about. He doesn’t really feel like Lance is dominating the conversation, just that he’s got a lot to share. Keith doesn’t mind hearing about it all. By the time they get to the truck, he’s learned that Lance has four siblings, all older than him, that the highest point in Wisconsin is only about two thousand feet above sea level, and that Lance is pretty much ready to monkey-wrench the shit out of any uranium mines that pop up in Bears Ears a lá Ed Abbey, despite the fact that he runs rivers for a living, which is probably not what Ed Abbey envisioned for Canyonlands. Lance is still grinning when he pops the back of the truck open and digs around, tossing Keith a warm PBR. 

“Cheers,” he says, and knocks it against Keith’s. They pop them at the same time and Keith grimaces after his first sip.

“Not a fan?” Lance asks.

“Piss water,” Keith replies. 

Lance shrugs. “Totally. Still, customary.” He lets down the back of the truck and hops up, legs swinging, patting the space beside him. Keith sits gingerly, keeping a foot of space between them. If he touches Lance again in the near future he’s not sure what he’ll be possessed to do. His shoulders still tingle from the absence of Lance’s arm slung across them.

They’re both quiet as they drink the beer, looking out over the expanse of red sand in front of them. It’s past one now, and the high canyon walls already send shadows stretching from their bases. There’s still a lot of daylight left, though, and Keith finds his mind running through ways to extend their time together, hikes they could do, roads they could drive up. He doesn’t want to go back to town yet, he wants to keep Lance to himself, beside him for a little longer.

To his surprise, Lance speaks first. “It’s still early,” he says. “I don’t really wanna go home yet. Wanna drive into the park? I’ve never been down to this district, other than right off the river.”

“You’ve never been to the Needles?” Keith asks. “Yeah, we should go.”

Lance grins at him again. “Sweet! I was hoping you’d be down. Guess I thought the climb would take longer.”

“So did I,” Keith replies, standing up and stretching. Lance takes his crushed beer can and throws it haphazardly in the back of the truck, where it lands with a clatter somewhere in the back. They throw their gear in after it and head back up the road, away from the Sixshooters, north towards Canyonlands. Lance exclaims at every new feature they see and turns the music up loud. Keith smiles and rolls down the window, leans his head against the frame to feel the air on his face and watch Lance’s expression lift with excitement at every curve in the road. He whoops again as they drive into the park and gets absurdly excited about the visitor center, where they pour over the topographic maps of the area and Lance pesters Keith for detailed descriptions about every place he’s ever been. They hike to the ruins of an old granary, eat lunch at the overlook, wander around the Slickrock trail until they run out of water and head back. Keith relaxes as the day goes by, starts sharing more about himself, too—nothing too in-depth, certainly nothing dipping close to foster care of years of running, but some things. Shiro. Adam. The mountains in New Mexico, the ocean in Oregon. What working at the store is like. Lance is as good a listener as he is a conversationalist, nodding with interest and prompting Keith when he starts to slow down. Again, the feeling of comfort rises between them. With Lance, Keith doesn’t feel like he needs to act.

They’re dawdling in the parking lot, laughing and drinking another PBR as other hikers start returning, getting in their cars, starting their long drives back to civilization. Keith can tell by Lance’s body language he’s as reluctant to call an end to the day as Keith. So Keith makes one last suggestion he knows he’s going to regret.

“You like sunsets?”

Lance snorts. “Who doesn’t like sunsets?”

“I, uh. Know a good place nearby. To watch it. If you wanted to go.”

Lance grins and crushes the beer can, throwing it in the back to join their first two. “Sure, man. Where to?”

Keith gets into the passenger seat. “Elephant Hill. We have to go down a dirt road for a bit and then we’ll hit a parking area. It’s not too long from the parking area to get to a nice viewpoint.”

“Sounds perfect.” The truck jerks out of the parking space and bounces down the road, stopping to let a few mule deer cross in front of them. They bump down the unpaved road until they come to the parking area at the bottom of a canyon, high, spired walls rising around them. The sun isn’t down yet, but the canyon is fully in shade, cool and darkening quickly. Lance shivers as he gets out of the truck and pulls on a fleece. Keith immediately misses the look of his muscles under his thin t shirt.

_Get it together, Keith_ , he thinks to himself, resisting the urge to smack his head against the side of the truck. Jesus Christ, one day hanging out with this guy and he’s turned into a pining disaster. He’s the hero of a young adult novel. He’s the damsel in distress in a telenovela. He’s cheesy fanfiction. He’s pathetic.

“Keith?” 

He starts, pops out from behind the truck red-faced. Lance stares at his flustered expression for a moment before saying, “You’re the one who knows where to go, dude.”

He clears his throat, pinches the tender skin on the inside of his arm, and walks over. “Right. Sorry. It’s this way.”

They climb up a steep, rocky trail towards the top of the canyon, quiet now in the fading light. When they get to the top, Keith leads them off trail along the side of one of the tall turrets of rock that give the district its name. They curve around the side of the pinnacle and the La Sals slide back into view, spread in front of them, the crumpled expanse of red rock cliffs and canyons laid out below them like a roughly knit blanket. Far ahead, the points of the Sixshooters stand out above the desert.

“Woah,” Lance breathes next to him. “Sick view.” 

“We were up there,” Keith says, pointing at South Sixshooter. “Crazy, right?”

Lance grins. “Crazy.” He settles himself on the ground, leaning up against the sandstone, pulling a chocolate bar from his pocket. “Want some?” he gestures at Keith. “It melted a bit, but it’s that good shit from the co-op.”

That good shit from the co-op just happens to be Keith’s favorite chocolate of all time, dark and smooth and bitter. His heart skips again as he sits next to Lance and holds out a hand. “Sure. Thanks.”

Lance hands over the bar and digs in his pocket again. “ _Also…_ this. Not sure if you’re into it, but do you mind if I do?” He’s holding a joint, expertly rolled. “You’re welcome to some, if you want.”

“Chocolate, weed, and a sunset…you really know how to have a good time.”

Lance grins. “You know it, Kogane.” He flicks the lighter and pulls the joint to his lips, puffing to get it going. Keith just stares at him, chocolate forgotten, looks at the way his lips purse around the end of the joint, the gentle movement of his cheeks….

Lance takes a long drag and flicks his eyes over to Keith, catching his stare. He holds it, long, and then exhales, blowing smoke and smirking. “Like what you see?”

Keith feels himself flushing over his entire body and tears his gaze away, breaking off a chunk of chocolate. “It’s a nice looking joint.”

Lance snorts. “One of my many talents.” The joint appears in his line of sight and Keith takes it, handing back the chocolate and taking a long drag. The burn of it settles in his lungs and a wash of fuzzy relaxation hits him almost immediately. He sighs and hands the joint back, eyes locked on the horizon where the sky’s tinted to pink. Next to him, Lance sighs in contentment as he takes a long drag. Keith pops the chocolate in his mouth and closes his eyes as it melts. The cool air of evening brushes against his face, pushing away the sweat and heat of the day, the scent of juniper strong and heady mixed with the burning weed. Lance’s shoulder is a warm, near thing pressed against him. It nudges him and he opens his eyes to the joint, takes another hit, even though the deep, fuzzy contentment has already settled in his bones. He hasn’t smoked for awhile, Shiro doesn’t approve, and just the single hit got him somewhere. He’s not going to refuse more, though. 

Lance breaks apart more of the chocolate, Keith’s eyes catching on his slender brown fingers as he does so. He hands Keith another piece and Keith smiles as their hands brush. The edges of the clouds light up with gold and the tips of the La Sals brush with a soft pink. Keith sighs and tips his head back against the rock, waving away the joint when Lance again offers it.

It’s never so obvious how quickly the earth spins than when the sun is rising or setting. As it dips behind the tops of the mountains to the west, the light turns bright orange, sending streaks across the sky and washing the desert in a dusky pink hue. The light coupled with the weed makes Keith feel as if he’s looking at it all from behind stained glass windows. The fire in the clouds doesn’t last long—soon, the sun dips fully below the horizon, leaving a thin line of fiery glow as the sky washes first pink and then deep purple. The snowy tips of the La Sals are the only thing still held in sunlight, shadows creeping up second to second. Above them, Keith can see the first bright stars, Mars hovering above the Abajos. 

Lance lets out a low noise when the last light fades from the peaks, and Keith chances a glance over to him again. His eyes are glued on the La Sals, face soft and open, a small smile turning up the edges of his lips. He looks perfectly content, blissed out, and Keith knows he probably looks the same. They didn’t bring headlamps—they should probably go now, before it gets darker, but he doesn’t want to break the crystalline perfection of the moment.

Lance turns his head and meets his eyes, smiling. “That was beautiful,” he says, voice low and gravely—from the joint, Keith thinks. He can’t take his eyes off Lance’s lips. 

“I’m glad you wanted to see it,” he forces out through the fog in his brain, and then Lance is leaning forward, hand reaching to brush against Keith’s cheek, and Keith’s frozen, suddenly so aware of his heartbeat thundering through his veins, the pulse of his body against Lance’s hand. 

“ _You’re_ fucking beautiful,” Lance says, and Keith’s mind goes blank for a long moment, buzzing and empty. 

“What?” he finally manages, which is really not what he wanted to come out of his mouth—what he wanted to say was maybe “you, too” or “holy shit” or “can I please kiss you” or “wanna fuck?”, but his brain isn’t really functioning at a high level right now. That’s why he panics when Lance’s face falls a bit and he pulls his hand away, saying “Sorry, I’m, like, really high, that was weird of me—“

“No!” Keith says, surging forward, overbalancing, and ending up pretty much straddling Lance’s lap. “Uh. I mean. You too.”

Lance raises one eyebrow—thin, perfectly shaped, he’s _gotta_ pluck those, there’s no way he has eyebrows that good without trying—“Me, too?”

“You’re, uh—“ Fuck. He’s so close. His eyes are pools Keith could drown in. He’s got a smattering of freckles, just a shade darker than his skin, scattered across his nose and cheeks. He licks his lips, and Keith’s caught in the movement, tracing his tongue, stuck on it. “You’re. Can I kiss you?”

“Jesus,” Lance says, and surges forward. Keith groans when their lips meet. He can’t help himself. Lance’s lips are soft and full, pushing against his with urgency and insistence. The kisses turn dirty in no time, open mouthed and hungry, their teeth scraping each other’s lips, tongues sliding against each other. Keith feels like he’s floating, like he’s untethered from the ground, totally surrounded by Lance and nothing else. Time stutters, languid and liquid around them. Lance smells sweaty—like a dude who’s been climbing and hiking all day—but, oddly, Keith doesn’t mind. He’s sure he smells worse, and for some reason he likes the scent on Lance. His hair is soft against his fingers. 

Lance pulls away, gasping, pupils blown. “God, Keith—“

Keith shuts him up with another kiss, bruising in force. He doesn’t want to hear Lance talk, he just wants to eat him whole. He tugs on Lance’s hair and Lance groans into his mouth, head falling back, perfect for Keith to mouth at his neck, press wet, open mouthed kisses against his adam’s apple, dig his teeth just a little into the juncture of his neck and shoulder. Lance outright moans at that, shivers under him, gasps as he pulls Keith’s mouth back to his own. He’s half-hard already, dick straining uncomfortably against his pants, and he can feel Lance against his leg. 

“Shit—fuck—shit, Keith, we need to—can we go back to the truck? I need to—I want—but there’s sand everywhere.” He sounds desperate and strung out, but his meaning is clear. Keith groans a “yes” into his mouth and rolls off him, jumping to his feet and offering Lance a hand up. They stumble down the trail, tripping against rocks and each other in the growing darkness, arms wrapped around each other, sharing kisses and laughing. They must look like absolute idiots, thank god they don’t run into any other hikers. They nearly fall down the steep part, which would have probably resulted in a broken bone and a real mood killer, but they make it to the deserted parking lot in one piece and stumble to the truck. Keith leans against it and tries to catch his breath while Lance fumbles with the latch on the topper and pushes their gear aside, pulling Keith up onto the bed behind him. Keith falls against him, gasping, and Lance’s hands are immediately on him, tugging at his shirt and pulling it over his head, pushing him down to hover over him and drop kisses down his throat and sternum to his pecs. His teeth graze over one of Keith’s nipples and he gasps, fists clenching in the rumpled sheets. Lance pulls back to grin at him.

“Not complaining about the bed now, huh?”

“I was never—ah!—complaining about the bed!”

“Right,” Lance says. “Can I please suck you off?”

“ _Shit_ ,” Keith hisses. “Yes—please—anything—“

Lane grins at him again and dives back down, tongue flicking over one nipple as his fingers pinch the other. Keith tries to be quiet, he does, but it hasn’t been like this in so long—his usual hookups aren’t into the foreplay, they just want to stick their dicks in him and be done with it, maybe have him suck their dicks first, and Keith doesn’t mind that, he really doesn’t, but this—this is—

“ _Oh_ ,” he groans as Lance slides down, mouthing around his bellybutton, fingers still working at his nipples. “Shit, Lance, you’re so—“

“Mmmm…so what?”

_“Fucking hot_ ,” Keith gasps out as Lance pulls down his pants and his boxers in one go and licks a long, wet line up his dick. “Take your shirt off.”

“Mmmm, bossy. Yes, sir.” Lance sits up, as much as he can in the low confines of the truck, and pulls his shirt and fleece off, and finally— _finally_ —Keith gets a good look at those muscles he’s been trying not to drool over for the last month. It’s disappointingly dim, thanks to the dusk outside, but Keith isn’t complaining. Lance is beautiful, lean and lithe in his chest and stomach, well built in his shoulders and arms from all that rowing he does. He’s got the proportions of a tortilla chip, which Keith is very much into. Lance smiles.

“Like what you see?” he asks again, and this time Keith won’t lie—“Yeah,” he says, and drags Lance down for another kiss, a bad one—just teeth knocking together and gasping into each other’s mouths, but Keith _loves it_ , he can’t get enough—

“Okay,” Lance says, pulling away and pinning the hand that follows him to the sheets. “ _Fuck,_ look at you—“ his eyes drag up and down Keith’s body and he feels laid out and incredibly exposed, but he doesn’t mind—doesn’t mind Lance seeing him like this, flushed and flustered in a way he rarely allows.

And then he _really_ doesn’t mind anything, because Lance slides down over Keith’s dick and flicks his tongue _just so_ and Keith can’t think of anything except for Lance, Lance’s hands on his hips holding him steady, the soft brush of his hair against his thighs, the timbre of Lance’s groan vibrating against him. He’s weak. He wants this to last forever, and he also wants to sit on Lance’s dick and stay there forever. He hasn’t even seen it yet, but he just knows it’s gonna be good.

“F- _fuck_!” He breathes into the sheets as Lance swallows him down impossibly deeper—the guy has zero gag reflex, and granted, Keith hasn’t gotten his dick sucked in awhile, but he doesn’t remember it being this good. All of a sudden, his string of "straight guy" hookups don’t seem that satisfying, after all. 

Lance pulls off him with a pop, a trail of saliva stretching between Keith’s dick and his mouth as he grins, the dim light glinting off his teeth. “You like that?”

Keith wants to have a snarky comeback, he really does, but his brain is straight mush at this point, and all he can do is pant out another “ _Hah—_ fuck, _Lance_ —“

Lance runs one finger appreciatively up Keith’s dick and he shivers in its wake. Then he leans close to Keith and whispers in his ear, “I’d love to ride you, tease you, make you come so hard—“ Keith groans at his words, at his hand as it closes around his dick, giving it long, firm strokes—“ _But_ —and this is really sexy of me to say—I haven’t taken a shit for twelve hours, so I think we’re gonna have to stick to jerking each other off, and raincheck anything better than that.”

Despite himself, Keith snorts out a laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”

Lance turns his head and nibbles on his ear, which Keith always thought was kind of a weird thing but turns out he’s actually really into it if it’s Lance doing the nibbling. “You like it.”

“Nobody talks about shitting while having sex.”

Lance pulls back a bit. “Well, technically, that’s something that really gets some people go—“

Keith shoves his hand over his mouth. “No. Don’t say it. Shut up and keep blowing me.”

Lance grins wickedly, but obeys, sliding back down and taking Keith into his mouth again, sliding up and down, sucking like his life depends on it, swirling his tongue around the tip, turning Keith into a shaking, moaning mess. Once he actually has the brains to think about it, he’ll probably be embarrassed over how quick he comes, but he can’t help himself. He’s been close since the moment they started kissing. 

“I’m close,” he warns Lance, fisting his hand in his hair in an effort to pull him off. “I’m— _fuck, Lance_ —“ Lance ignores his efforts, just hums and keeps bobbing his head, sending vibrations through Keith’s dick, and the heat coiling in his belly pulls taut and releases. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to muffle his cry, one hand tugging at Lance’s hair and the other scrabbling uselessly for purchase on the side of the topper. And Lance just lets it happen, pulls off carefully, raises his head to meet Keith’s eyes—and swallows. Once. Pointed. His adam’s apple bobs and then he licks his lips. _Licks his lips_.

“Jesus Christ,” Keith pants out, breathless. “Lance. You didn’t have to—do that.”

“I like it, though,” Lance says innocently, and then shimmies back up to cover Keith’s lips with his own. Keith himself isn’t a huge fan of the taste of semen, but the salty taste of his own cum lingering in Lance’s mouth only serves to remind him of how fucking hot what just happened was, and he licks into him eagerly, desperate. Lance moans into his mouth and grinds against his leg and Keith feels how hard he is, still trapped in his pants and underwear. “Shit,” Keith says, pulling away slightly. “Come up here, come on—“ He tugs at Lance’s hips, pulling him up as he kisses him until Lance shifts, straddling him, and Keith gets his fingers under his waistbands and tugs down his pants. His arms only reach so far, though, and eventually Lance draws back, laughing, and rolls to the side, tugging them fully off and throwing them against the back of the cab. Keith tugs his underwear down for him and finally, _finally_ gets a good look and Lance’s cock—it’s nice, not too thick, but long, with a cute little curve to it. It looks painfully hard, leaking precum already, and Keith hasn’t even gotten his hands on it. 

“Shit,” Keith says again. “Can I?”

Lance nods once, and then his arms collapse immediately as Keith gets his mouth on him and he collapses on his back. “Jesus _fuck_ ,” he gasps. “I—I’m sorry, I’m not going to last long…”

“Don’t apologize,” Keith says, pulling off to take a deep breath. He mouths at him, the base and the head, licks up the length, bites at his thighs, teasing him. He’s got more of a gag reflex than Lance does, he can’t take him as deep, but he knows he’s pretty good at sucking dick, if he goes off what others have told him. Lance seems pretty into it, too, head thrown back, thighs taught and trembling. His hand finds it’s way to the back of Keith’s head and Keith lets him guide him—it’s not rough, but he enjoys the feeling of being moved, of being pushed deeper down, even if he has to surface for air before long. Keith’s hand creeps up Lance’s chest, plays with his nipples, brushes his throat. His fingers ghost across Lance’s lips and Lance opens for him, sucking two of them in and swirling his tongue around them. Keith moans around his dick and sinks further down.

An indeterminate amount of time passes—Keith’s still feeling fuzzy from the weed, from the scent and taste of Lance clouding his head, from the warm, syrupy bask of his own orgasm. Eventually, Lance’s hand tightens in his hair and pulls him off, guiding him back up towards his head. Lance captures him in another hot kiss, shaking against him, and Keith makes a questioning noise against his lips.

“Want you to jerk me off,” Lance pants, rolling them so he’s on top of Keith again, dick slapping heavily against his belly. Keith goes easily—he can’t really fight it, lower legs still trapped in the tangled mess of his pants and boxers. He pauses to kick them all the way off and Lance’s dick slides against his own. He’s embarrassed to feel he’s half hard again, already—the hair pulling and the finger sucking really did it for him. 

Lance is still talking. “Want to kiss you,” he says, diving back in. “Want to see you,” he mumbles against Keith’s mouth. Keith groans and pulls away, spits into his own palm—which, yeah, is gross, but finding the lube that’s probably floating around somewhere in his backpack is too much right now and even though Lance is dripping with precome and Keith’s spit already, he wants this to be nice and slick. He makes eye contact with Lance as he reaches down and Lance’s eyes nearly roll back as Keith takes him in his hand, starts out slow, picking up speed. Lance braces himself on shaking arms and dives back in, licking into Keith’s mouth, dirty and desperate. Keith’s fully hard again, his hand brushing against his own dick every so often as he jerks Lance off, sending lightning up his spine. 

“Shit,” Lance gasps against his neck, “you’re hard again.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“What the fuck are you apologizing for?” Lance grabs Keith’s hand and guides his own dick into it, until Keith’s holding both their dicks in one hand, slowly moving up and down. He groans at the sensation and Lance drops his head down against Keith’s shoulder. “Shit, Keith—you’re so fucking hot—you’re beautiful—“

“That’s pretty gay,” Keith manages around the barrage of sensations. He’s still sensitive from his first orgasm, and the pressure of his own hand and Lance’s dick pushing against his is almost too much, but not quite—enough to make him feel like all his nerve endings are buzzing, enough to make him close his eyes against the sensations and just _feel_.

“Don’t say that too loud,” Lance pants out with a breathy laugh. “Someone might find out.”

Keith laughs despite himself, and then Lance bites down into his shoulder, sucking and licking, and he flicks his wrist faster, and their hips jerk together, adding to the friction and—

Lance stiffens with a cry and Keith feels him spilling over his fist, arms giving out and collapsing heavily on Keith’s chest. Keith jerks them once, twice more, and then he, too, is coming with a toe-curling cry he can’t hope to muffle this time. His vision whites out and for a moment he’s floating untethered, basking, shaking through a few aftershocks. _Shit_. That’s one of the best orgasms he’s ever had, and all they did was jerk each other off like a couple of horny high schoolers. 

Lance sighs in contentment and nestles into him, ignoring the wet mess cooling on Keith’s stomach. He turns his face into Keith’s neck and kisses him gently, and _god_ , Keith’s in trouble.

They’re both quiet for a long time, curled together in the close darkness. Lance’s face stays tucked in Keith’s neck, his panting slowing to even, deep breaths, leaving Keith’s skin damp and warm. Keith traces Lance’s spine where it curves and breathes him in and thinks, _this must be bliss_.

But bliss never lasts. After an indeterminable amount of time, Kosmo starts whining from the front seat and Lance sighs and stirs. Keith’s eyelids are heavy, body languid and sated. He groans as Lance starts to move around, groping for his underwear.

“Can’t we just stay out here for the night?” he whispers as Lance pauses, taking a long swallow of water, the lines of his neck illuminated in the moonlight seeping through the windows. 

Lance smiles. “I have to work tomorrow.”

Keith groans in response and Lance laughs, leaning over him to brush a strand of hair out of his eyes with excruciating tenderness. “You can sleep on the way back. I don’t mind.” He rummages around and comes up with a crumpled roll of paper towels, wets one with the water, wipes off Keith’s stomach and chest carefully. “Sorry,” he says. “This isn’t the best clean up.”

Keith shakes his head. “It’s okay. And I’ll stay up. I’ll keep you company.” He stretches and takes his shirt as Lance hands it to him, grimacing at the sweaty smell as he pulls it over his head. “Sorry I stink.”

“We both stink,” Lance says cheerfully. “I didn’t mind.” He passes Keith his pants next and Keith shimmies into them awkwardly, remaining horizontal as he does so, then sitting up slightly to take a swig from the water bottle Lance hands him. Before they slide out the back, Lance captures him in a long, deep kiss, less desperate and dirty than anything previous. Keith melts into him and thinks, _if this was just a one-time thing you better enjoy it, buddy_. He’s loathe to let go.

In the end, Keith’s promise to stay awake comes to nothing. He falls asleep before they even leave the park to the quiet sounds of Pink Floyd and Lance’s low voice singing along. He’s totally out until Lance shakes him awake in his driveway. 

“We’re back,” he says quietly as Keith blinks blearily at him. 

“Oh.” He wipes the gunk from his eyes and stumbles out of the truck. Lance helps grab the gear from the back and then stands awkwardly by the driver’s side, drumming his fingers against the door.

“Well,” he says. “That was, uh, fun.”

“Yeah,” Keith agrees, yawning.

“See you later, then?”

Keith blinks at him. “Do you want to come in?”

Lance looks surprised. “And do…what?”

Keith yawns again. “Sleep, you dumbass. Where were you planning on going for the night?”

He can just make out the flush on Lance’s cheeks in the dim wash of the front porch light. “Um. Probably just down by the river. Or maybe Pidge’s. I don’t want you to, like, feel obligated—I have to get up really early—”

Keith rolls his eyes. “Just come in. If you don’t want to, that’s fine, but my mattress is more comfortable than yours.” He whistles for Kosmo and heads to the front door. After a moment of silence, he hears Lance following and allows a small smile to break through. After all, it’s too dark for Lance to see it.

* * *

**TERMS**

**Belay—** The term for tension against a rope that anchors a climber so they don’t fall far. The belayer is usually a person at the bottom or top of a climb holding the rope the climber is attached to. A belay device is a piece of equipment the belayer loops the rope through to hold it taught and keep it secured.

**Beta—** A phrase for both describing information about climbs—location, difficulty, types of equipment needed, routes, foot and hand holds, etc—and giving advice on how to climb a specific route.

**Flaking—** Unravelling your rope before you climb to make sure there aren’t any knots or places it will catch as someone climbs

**Pro—** Basically the term for the gear you need to trad climb. These are the anchors you place in the route to clip your rope to. “Active” pro is gear that moves, like cams, which are slid into cracks in rock and expand to hold there, and wedges, which do the same thing with a simpler mechanism. “Passive” pro is gear that doesn’t move, like chocks/nuts, which are squares and wedge into small cracks, hexes, which arehexagons that do the same, and tube chocks, which are long rods that wedge into wide cracks. Trad routes call for specific sizes of all of the above based on the climb, and on established routes you read the requirements before you go and bring what you need. 

**Slings—** A loop of webbing (flat strip of strong woven fabric) usually used as an an anchor, a hitch, or to extend the reach of a rope.

**Sport Climbing—** These routes have permanent anchors fixed into the rock that you clip into as you climb. Many sport routes, especially in the easily-eroded sandstone of the southwest, do not have reliable anchors—many anchors may be loose or missing, especially on popular routes.

**Trad Climbing—** “Traditional” climbing. These routes involve placing your own gear as you climb and removing it when you finish.

**PLACES**

**The Abajos—** Mountains in southeastern Utah southwest of Moab, near Monticello and Indian Creek.

**Arches National Park—** A national park directly north of Moab, famous for its thousands of sandstone arches, including Delicate Arch. Many tower and wall routes, including Owl Rock.

**Bears Ears—** A large area southeast of Moab, declared a national monument in 2016 and carved into smaller pieces by an executive order of Trump’s in 2017. Indian Creek is in one of the remaining pieces of the monument. The Abajo Mountains and Cedar Mesa, as well as innumerable canyons, mesas, and washes, all rich in anthropological sites, ruins, and areas sacred to Native tribes, are no longer under protection. People are either really happy or really mad about it

**Colorado River—** One of the largest and most important watersheds in the Southwestern US, the Colorado begins in the Colorado Rockies and flows west into Utah where it joins with it’s largest tributary, the Green, in Canyonlands before flowing down to the canyons of Glen Canyon, Lake Powell, and the Grand Canyon. 

**Green River—** Large river originating in the Wind River range of Wyoming. Flows through Wyoming and south into Utah, where it’s carved several huge canyons before merging with the Colorado in the middle of Canyonlands.

**Fisher Towers—** A popular climbing spot east of Moab. High concentration of moderate to difficult desert towers. Mostly trad with some unreliable sport routes.

**Henry Mountains—** Mountains in south-central Utah west of Moab. The last mountain range in the lower 48 to be named and put on maps.

**Indian Creek—** A popular climbing spot about an hour south of Moab. Mostly trad with some sport routes. South Sixshooter is widely considered the easiest tower in this area of the desert, and is one of the most popular climbs in Indian Creek.

**Island in the Sky, The Maze, The Needles,—** The three districts of Canyonlands National Park, a huge park southwest of Moab. Island in the Sky is a fairly accessible district, made up of the high plateau and the canyons of the Colorado on the east and the Green on the west. The Needles district is accessible an hour and half south of Moab, past Indian Creek; and the Maze is extremely remote and only accessible via the rivers or 4WD roads.

**Jeep Week—** Exactly what it says on the tin. A bunch of Jeeps and 4WD vehicles converge in Moab to drive the slick rock jeep trails, do races, and talk about Jeeps and 4WD. Probably the worst week in the year to go to Moab, in my opinion.

**The Land of Standing Rocks—** An area of the Maze known for its climbing.

**The La Sals—** Mountains in southeastern Utah, along the border with Colorado. Directly east of Moab, they dominate the horizon of Arches and Canyonlands. They’re among the tallest peaks in the state, topping out at above 12,000 feet.

**Moab—** Town in southeastern Utah, situated on the Colorado between Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. Regional hub and popular base camp for tourists, climbers, bikers, river rafters, backpackers, and everyone else. 

**Stillwater Canyon—** The fifty miles of the Green River above the confluence in Canyonlands. One of the more popular places to float. Meander Canyon is the corresponding slow-flowing section of the Colorado above the confluence.

**The White Rim—** A sandstone formation below the Island in the Sky Mesa in Canyonlands. The rim is 1,000 feet below Island in the Sky and around 1,000 feet (though it varies) above the rivers. A 70 mile Jeep road traverses the rim, which is extremely popular for mountain biking. It’s also used as an access point to Stillwater Canyon and Meander Canyon. There are many well known climbing spots along the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "My least favorite part's going down" YEAH RIGHT LANCE.
> 
> She's a two-parter, next one will be posted soon! Thanks for reading!
> 
> [Come say hi on tumblr.](https://prevalent-masters.tumblr.com)


	2. River

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I'll update soon," I said, you know, like a liar.
> 
> Wanna skip the sex? Stop reading at "Eventually, Keith pushes him away" and start back up at "'Oh my god,' he says, frozen in horror".

The next day, after Lance rolls out of bed at the ass-crack of dawn for work, dropping a kiss on Keith’s forehead before he goes, after he sorts out their gear and takes Kosmo for a walk and goes to the grocery store and the bank and runs into James at the liquor store because he _always_ runs into James at the liquor store; Keith has a minor freak out. He’s honestly impressed with how long he managed to stave it off. 

He ambushes Shiro as soon as he gets back from work and follows him into the kitchen as he sheds his bag, jacket, shoes, and uniform shirt. 

“We fucked,” is the first thing out of his mouth. He wishes he’d been able to start with something more dignified but he’s never been one to beat around the bush. “Or, well—we messed around.”

Shiro snorts. “I figured, considering he was in your bed this morning. What happened to hating him?”

“I _really_ don’t hate him,” Keith moans. “I mean, I do, but I _don’t_. We had such a good time yesterday. He’s actually a really good climber and he was stoked about the climb, and then we just wandered around Canyonlands for the rest of the day and watched the sunset and he’s so _nice_ and he’s not actually an asshole at all, I mean, he wasn't all day, at least. He can still be annoying sometimes, like he talks _a lot_ , but I just—I just didn't mind! And Shiro, what am I gonna do?”

Shiro pulls a beer out of the fridge and sits heavily and the kitchen table, kicking his feet up on an empty chair and rubbing his eyes. “Keith, why exactly do you feel the need to _do_ something? It sounds like it went well and you like him and he clearly likes something about you, and you had a good time. Did you get the impression he’d like to repeat the experience?”

“The day, or the fucking?”

“Either. Both. Hanging out with you, I meant.”

“I—yes? But I don’t know, he didn't say anything, and I didn’t—he left really early this morning and we didn’t make any plans. Oh, god, we should have made plans! Who fucks someone and then doesn’t plan a follow-up?”

“You’re making it sound like a business transaction. From my end, it sounds like you don’t have anything to worry about. If you are worried, why don’t you just text him?”

“I don’t want to sound desperate! He would text _me_ if he wanted to talk!”

“Hasn’t he been on the river all day?”

“I—oh. I guess he has.”

Shiro holds out a hand in a _see what I’m saying?_ gesture and returns to his beer. Keith drops down into the chair across from him with a huff.“I don’t know why I’m freaking out so much.”

“Well,” Shiro says, “it has been a while since you’ve actually been interested in anyone. Your spring break twinks don’t count.”

“Don’t call them that,” Keith scowls, then relents. “But yeah, I guess.”

“I know,” Shiro says. “Look, I know telling you this is not very helpful, but try not to overthink it? You really don’t need to.”

“I know,” Keith growls, and starts picking at a crusty stain on the tabletop. Shiro sighs and pushes his beer aside, getting to his feet with a groan and moving over to the fridge. His voice emerges muffled as he digs through the crisper. “For the record,” he says, “I’m happy for you.”

Keith slumps down until his face is level with the table, staring cross-eyed at Shiro’s beer. “Thanks.”

Shiro pulls away from the fridge with a bundle of green onions and a jar of kimchi. “And, because I’m the one who’ll have to drag your sorry ass to the clinic if something happens, it’s my due diligence to remind you to use protection, even if—“

“SHIRO!”

Shiro’s laughing as he holds up his hands in supplication. “Alright, alright, I’m just saying—“

“I’M TWENTY FOUR! I DON’T NEED A SEX TALK!”

“Oh, yes,” Adam says as he comes into the kitchen, dropping his messenger bag on the table in front of Keith and ruffling his hair before swooping over to kiss Shiro. “I hear congratulations are in order. You got laid!”

“Oh my god,” Keith says, and puts his forehead down against the table, squeezing his eyes shut. 

“A little reminder never hurt anyone,” Adam says in a wicked tone. “Besides, it’s been so long, you might have forgotten! You didn’t even have any of your college boys over all spring—“

“Shut up,” Keith pleads. “Please. _Please_.” The annoying part is they’re not wrong. It _has_ been awhile, which is probably another reason why he’s so goddamn obsessed with Lance.

“You love us,” Adam chides. “You’d be lost without us. What’re we making, babe?”

Their conversation turns to dinner and Keith rests his chin on his arms and watches them move around the kitchen, a well-practiced dance of stove to fridge to cutting board. Adam presses a palm to Shiro’s back as he passes behind him, Shiro nudges Adam’s glasses back up his nose for him while his hands are busy chopping onions. He wonders distantly if he’ll ever have that easiness with another person, those movements that speak to being so used to having them beside you your body automatically moves to accommodate them. He thinks he wants that, someday, but the idea seems far off, impossible. He thinks of this home he’s carved for himself, here with them. He thinks of Lance, his long fingers, the bright of his eyes in the sunlight.

He pulls his knees up in his chair and rests his chin on them. “Do you guys ever…wish I hadn’t moved in? I never really asked. I just showed up.”

Shiro stops mid-movement, spatula in the air, dripping sauce on the stove. Adam looks up from the lime he’s slicing, mouth open.

“What?” Shiro asks after a moment. “Why would you even ask that?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “It’s just—you two. You moved down here to be together, and it’s been four years, and, I dunno, maybe you don’t want to be living with your—“ _deadbeat not-even brother you were nice to in high school who then attached himself to your side like a limpet and won’t let go._

Shiro gives him a Look. “My what?”

“Your—me.”

Shiro puts down the spatula, turns off the burner, and crosses his arms. “And why wouldn’t I want that?”

Keith shrugs, starts gnawing on his thumbnail, tears off a hangnail. A drop of blood wells up. “I don't know. I probably wasn’t part of your plan. And you didn’t even know me before I showed up expecting to live with you.” He directs the last part at Adam, who’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. “And now I just sit around and whine at you and ask you to help me solve my problems when you probably have better things to be doing.”

“Keith,” Shiro orders, “stand up.”

“Why?”

“Keith,” Shiro walks over, grabs Keith’s arms, and hauls him to his feet. “Listen to me.”

“Sorry,” Keith mumbles, looking down at his feet. “You don’t have to give me a lecture.”

“Keith,” Shiro says again. Adam comes up behind him, rests a hand on his shoulder, looking at Keith. “You did not ruin anything by coming here. I wish you hadn’t dropped out of school, but if you’d been in school you’d better believe you’d be here every break, every summer, any time you wanted. In case you hadn’t noticed, we live with Matt, too. We’re hardly trying to start a household together. We already have one, with you guys. And you don’t just sit around whining, you’re just finally willing to ask for help when you need it or want it, and that makes me happy.”

“Yeah,” Keith mumbles. “I just. I mean—I know I can be a lot, or whatever—“

“You were the best part of those years in foster care,” Shiro says abruptly. “You’ve been the best part of my life since my parents died. You’re my brother, and I’ve never once in my life wished you weren’t there beside me. And Adam feels the—well, I’ll let Adam say for himself how he feels.”

Adam clears his throat, adjusts his glasses, and reaches out to ruffle Keith’s hair. “Despite myself, you’ve managed to worm your way into my cold, dead heart, and I’d miss you if you were gone. I will miss you, on the day you inevitably leave us for the other great adventures in your life. Got it?”

Tears spring unbidden to Keith’s eyes. He blinks hard. “Yeah,” he manages through the lump in his throat.

Shiro pulls him to his chest in a crushing hug, and Adam wraps his arms around both of them. “I love you,” Shiro says.

“Love you too,” he mumbles back.

The back door slams open and Kosmo bounds in, barking joyfully, colliding with their knees. Matt follows, dropping his bag on the floor. “He just took a massive shit in the yard, someone needs—,” he starts, then pauses, noticing the three of them standing in front of the stove. “Oh, are we doing a group hug? Excellent!” He bounds forward and envelopes Keith from behind, planting an exaggerated kiss on Shiro’s head as he does so.

“I love you all,” Keith mutters against Shiro’s shoulder, barely audible. Matt laughs, breath stirring against the back of his head. “We know,” he says. “We love you too.”

* * *

Keith doesn’t text Lance, because he’s busy. He’s working. He and Shiro and Allura go on an overnight trip to Capitol Reef and he comes back exhausted with the vague rumblings of a cold in his chest and then sleeps for a full day. He’s _busy._ He is _not_ scared.

Lance must be less of a coward. A few days later, he’s lying in bed watching Netflix when his phone buzzes six times in quick succession. His stomach flutters and he smiles as he reads the texts, imagining Lance there talking at him, fast and disorganized.

It’s cute. _He’s_ cute! Keith hides his face in his pillow and tries to get himself under control. He can’t reply right away, he doesn’t want to sound _too_ eager, even though his stomach is engaged in triumphant jumping jacks at the thought of seeing Lance again, of getting _breakfast_ with him. Since when did the idea of breakfast burritos have him melting like a sappy heroine in a nineteenth century novel?

He finishes the episode before he replies, but he barely pays attention to what’s happening, too focused on formulating his response to Lance. 

****

* * *

Because he’s incapable of being chill about anything, he spends thirty minutes agonizing over what to wear the morning of the breakfast date (a _date_ , he’s going on a date, he hasn’t been on a date in literal years that wasn’t just a brief, alcoholic precursor to fucking). Keith doesn’t really care what he looks like—his usual morning routine involves rolling out of bed fifteen minutes before he’s supposed to be somewhere, throwing on whatever happens to be on the floor near his mattress as long as it doesn’t smell absolutely rank, and brushing his teeth (on a good day). He’s not used to caring what someone thinks of his appearance. Shiro stands laughing at him in the doorway as he throws clothes around his room and tugs at his hair.

“Your hair’s fine,” Shiro says as he pulls it out of a bun for the fourth time. “Every time you do that it gets more staticky. Just leave it up, or keep it down.”

“I don’t know which,” Keith groans. “My hair was so gross last time, I want him to know I shower!”

“Well, he got a realistic picture of you and wasn't turned off by it, apparently. It looks good down. Just _leave it_.”

“Okay,” Keith says, and pulls it back up. “Okay. This shirt doesn’t go with these pants.”

“They’re jeans. Everything goes with jeans.”

“It doesn’t go.” He pulls it off, which fucks up the bun again. He sniffs his armpits. They stink a little, which isn’t _fair_ because he just showered. “What the fuck,” he says, and piles on more deodorant. Shiro starts laughing again.

“You’re not helping!”

“It’s just literally so hilarious to see you worried about _clothes_. This, from the man who once wore a shirt until it was literally falling apart and somehow didn’t notice.”

Keith bristles. “That was a climbing shirt! It fell apart 'cause I scraped my back squeezing through that chimney on Liquid Sky!”

“Whatever. Wear this,” Shiro says, and leans over to pick up a t-shirt crumpled on the floor by Keith’s mattress. It’s standard, black, but a little nicer than most of his shirts. A little cropped, too, and Keith rarely wears it because he’s always self conscious about the strip of stomach that shows above his jeans. It’s a little feminine, and while Keith likes that in theory, it’s a bit scary to wear that sort of thing here. It puts him on edge. Back in Oregon, he could wear whatever he wanted and no one blinked an eye, but the first time he painted his nails after moving to Moab, someone called him a faggot at the bar. He hasn’t painted his nails since. Or worn anything much more exciting than climbing comp t-shirts from high school and shit from the REI garage sales up in Salt Lake. Not exactly flattering. Not exactly… _sexy._

“That one?” he asks, hands coming up involuntarily to wrap around his bare ribs. “Really?”

“Really. You look good in it. It shows off the tat.”

Shiro’s right. The sleeves of the shirt fall just above the tattoo on Keith’s upper arm, an intricate, abstract canyon scene of curving, bold black lines that wrap around his arm under a solid red sun. It’s one of the few things Keith genuinely loves about his appearance (a little sad, maybe, considering it’s not something he was born with, but oh well), and most of his t-shirts cover the top half of it. He kind of wants Lance to see it. He kind of wants Lance to see his stomach, too.

“Okay,” he says, and slides it on, redoing his bun for what he’s determined is the last time. Shiro steps back and looks him up and down with a critical eye.

“Good?” Keith asks, chewing on his thumbnail.

“Good,” Shiro nods, satisfied. “Don’t chew on your nails.”

“Thanks, mom,” Keith mumbles.

“Don’t call me that. Now get out of this room before you decide to change again.”

They’re meeting at the cafe, so Keith takes the opportunity to walk, even though it’s not super close to their house. He brings Kosmo and they meander their way there through the park, enjoying the warmth of the morning before it descends to heat. It’s late May, now, and the tourists are encroaching, main street heavy with traffic, bodies crowding the sidewalks. Keith doesn’t feel as annoyed with them as usual, though, and forgets to feel self conscious about his shirt, his face, his body. 

Lance is already waiting outside the cafe, head down and eyes on his phone, leaning up against the porch, speckled with shade from the climbing vines in the bright slant of morning. Keith stops just down the street and takes a moment to look at him, his heart beating loud in his ears. He looks impossibly tanner, a hint of sunburn on the tip of his nose, those muscled arms exposed by a tank top, hair crammed under a backwards baseball cap. He smiles at something on his phone and Keith practically melts onto the sidewalk.

Kosmo whines in excitement and tugs at the leash. Lance looks up at the sound, makes eye contact, smiles. Then his gaze catches on Keith’s shirt and doesn’t stray as Keith approaches, until he’s standing right in front of him and his eyes flick up to meet Keith’s, blush high on his cheekbones.

“Hey,” Keith says as Kosmo attacks him. 

“Hey,” Lance replies, slightly strangled, though that could be from Kosmo’s paws pushing against his stomach.

“ _Off_ ,” Keith says sharply and Kosmo drops down, still staring up at Lance adoringly. “How’s it going?”

“Good,” Lance says, still slightly strangled, and then clears his throat. “You uh—you look good.” His eyes meet Keith’s and then drift down almost unconsciously to the strip of skin between his jeans and his shirt. Inwardly, Keith’s blushing and also jumping for joy. Outwardly, he refuses to show his satisfaction. “Should we get a table?” he asks instead. “Maybe one out here, so I can keep an eye on Kosmo?”

“What? Oh. Yeah. Out here. Yeah.” Lance drags his eyes away from Keith and towards the front door, at the line snaking away from the counter. “Looks like all the inside seats are taken, anyway.”

“It’s fine,” Keith says, feeling unreasonably cheerful. “It’s nice out.” He ties Kosmo’s leash to the porch railing and they walk inside to join the line. He feels Lance’s eyes on him like a burning thing, heavy and hot. 

“So,” he says after a minute, to fill the sort of awkward, sort of charged silence that descends as they wait in line, the low din of conversation in the crowded cafe close around them. “The one pound burrito, huh?”

Lance’s eyes snap away from his stomach again. Turns out Keith’s vain because he feels like fucking preening at the attention. Lance is blushing and stammering and it feels so good to be the person making that happen. Keith doesn’t think he’s ever made anyone stammer in his life.“Y-yeah,” Lance says, then seems to determinedly pull himself together. “Yeah, so, like, what do I get if I win the bet?”

“What bet?” Keith asks, mystified. 

Lance rolls his eyes. “ _You_ said you thought I couldn’t eat an entire one. And _I_ said, ‘you’re on’. Meaning, on for the bet.”

“Oh,” Keith says, remembering their text conversation. “Yeah, I guess I did. Does that mean I have to get the burrito, too?”

Lance nods, grinning. “And we race each other to see who can eat it fastest.”

“Okay, ew,” Keith says. “I’m not deepthroating a burrito and feeling sick for the rest of the day just so you can prove a point.”

“You don’t _have_ to do anything,” Lance says. “That just mean’s I'm gonna win.”

Keith’s nothing if not competitive when goaded, and Lance is turning out to be very, very good at goading him. “In your dreams,” he says, and shoulders his way in front of Lance so he can order first. Actually, on second thought, this is a date, so is he supposed to buy Lance’s meal? Or is Lance supposed to get his? Shit, he forgot how complicated things are when you’re dating instead of just sleeping around. Although, he also needs to cool it, probably. They’ve only slept together once, and neither of them even had a dick up their ass, and yeah, it was still fucking great, and Keith might be a little bit obsessed, but. Lance almost definitely probably isn’t thinking of this as a date, he just wanted to eat a burrito. All that to say—Keith probably doesn’t need to buy Lance’s burrito? Even though he kind of wants to?

“Keith,” Nyma says from behind the counter, because of course she’s working, he can’t go anywhere in this fucking town without running into someone he sort of knows and making a fool of himself, “Are you going to order?”

“Two breakfast burritos,” he blurts out. “And coffee. For me.” He’s panicking. He turns back to Lance. “You want coffee?”

Lance already has his wallet out and looks confused. “You, uh. Don’t have to pay for me?”

Shit. _Shit_. They’re so not dating and this was definitely the wrong move, judging by the look on Lance’s face. He needs to say something. He needs to say something _quick_. “Uh. Yeah. I do. Because.” Because why? _Because why???_ “Because you drove last week.”

“Yeah, but then you let me crash, so I’d say we’re even.” Behind the counter, Nyma looks gleeful at the thought of Keith letting someone stay over. She knows he barely has any friends. 

“Gas costs money,” he croaks eventually. “Coffee, or something else?”

Lance squints at him. “This just means I owe you a meal next time, okay? Chai, please. With oat milk, if you have it.”

Nyma nods and types in the order and Keith barely notices how much it costs as he hands over his card. _Next time_. Lance wants a next time! Maybe they are dating.

Oh, Jesus, _maybe they’re dating_.

The rest of the date/not a date/who the fuck knows goes well. Keith’s kind of having an internal freak out the entire time, but that means Lance is doing most of the talking, which means Keith finishes his burrito first and gets to gloat while Lance pouts and moans that Keith tricked him. 

Lance still finishes his own burrito with no problems whatsoever—one pound really isn’t that much, even though it sounds like it is—and soon they’re faced with empty plates and the rest of the day ahead of them. Keith knows Lance isn’t working, and Lance knows Keith isn’t working, and Keith is pretty sure they both want to keep hanging out but he for one is an idiot and also a dumbass and can’t figure out how to bring it up without sounding desperate. So, instead of actually communicating, they just loiter outside the cafe for half an hour while Kosmo whines, talking about something Keith literally doesn’t remember until he finally grows a pair and blurts, “ _wannatakekosmoonahikewithme?_ ”

Lance breaks off mid-sentence to look at him. “Uh—what?”

Keith’s cheeks burn. He has to look away from Lance’s eyes. “Want to take Kosmo on a walk with me? I mean, if you don’t have anything better—any other plans.”

Lance lights up. “Oh! Yeah!”

“Cool,” Keith says, and clears his throat. Kosmo, hearing the word “walk”, whines in excitement and jumps on Lance again.

“ _Off_!” Keith snaps at him. “Sorry, he’s being bad today. He’s just excited.”

“I love him,” Lance says adoringly, scratching Kosmo’s ears. He really shouldn’t have positive reinforcement for jumping on people, but Keith finds the image too devastatingly cute to stop Lance from doing it. “Where?”

“Where, what?”

Lance looks at him. “ _Where_ do you want to go on a walk?”

Keith honestly hadn’t gotten that far. Kosmo’s already been on a walk—from home to here—and Keith hadn’t planned on taking him on another one today. It was just an excuse to hang out with Lance longer.

“I—er.”

“Ooh!” Lance says, eyes lighting up. “Pidge was telling me about a place—um, I guess it might be kind of far away…” he pulls out his phone and squints at the display. “It’s still pretty early, though. I could drive?”

“Where?” Keith asks, pushing Kosmo away as he jumps around in ecstasy. Lance laughs and kneels on the ground, opens his arms for Kosmo. Keith resists the urge to coo. “You’re making him think it’s okay to be this overexcited.”

Lance looks guilty. “Sorry. He’s just _so cute_ , I can’t help it!” He scrunches Kosmo’s face between his hands. Kosmo licks his nose adoringly. “Um—I’ve never been up in the La Sals, and Pidge mentioned a hike she really likes up off the loop road—Warner Lake? And you can get to another lake from there?”

“Oh, yeah.” The lakes in the La Sals are, in Keith’s humble opinion, little more than glorified, marshy puddles, but he hasn’t been up there for a few years and the wildflowers are probably just exploding into their almost violently beautiful tableau this time of year. Added bonus—fewer people up there than anywhere in the desert on a beautiful, sunny Saturday. 

“Okay,” he agrees. “I’d be down. Kosmo can be off-leash up there, so he’ll be happy.”

“Great!” Lance chirps. “The truck’s parked down the street.” He jerks his thumb, and then his eyes catch on Keith’s stomach again. “Uh—do you need to run home, grab anything, change?”

“Oh.” He looks down at himself, forgetting his vaguely nicer-than-usual attire. He wiggles his toes, bare in his Chacos, and thinks for a minute. “No,” he says eventually. “The trail is pretty flat and easy. If you have an extra water bottle, we should be good to go.”

Lance grins at him. “I’ve got extra water. Does Kosmo need that doggy bowl you brought last week?”

“Nah, he can drink out of the creek and the lakes.”

“Sweet,” Lance says, and starts walking down the street towards his truck. “Glad you suggested it,” he shoots over his shoulder. “I was probably gonna end up sitting inside all day playing video games with Pidge.”

Keith catches up with him, Kosmo dragging him along. Lance’s truck, parked on a side street, is covered in a thick layer of rusty red mud.

“What’d you do?” Keith asks, pushing Kosmo into the backseat, “Drive through a river?”

“Something like that,” Lance chuckles. “got stuck on the wrong side of a flash flood after that big rain storm on Thursday. Had to drive through a half-flooded ravine to get back into town.”

Keith stares at him. “You know that’s dangerous, right? You can get swept away?” Keith has nightmares about them, walls of water washing away trees, boulder, bridges, anything in their way. He's never been caught in one but he's seen the damage.The thought of Lance driving through the dregs of one in this rusted out truck is enough to make nausea roll in his stomach. 

Lance has the audacity to laugh at Keith's horrified expression. “No worries, dude. I know what Blue’s capable of. She’s tougher than she looks. Besides, it was over—just really muddy.”

“You never know,” Keith grumbles, buckling his seatbelt. 

“Right, Mr. I-Climb-Big-Rocks-But-I’m-Afraid-Of-Water.”

“Don’t make fun of me! Flash floods are extremely reasonable things to be afraid of. _You_ should know, if you’re being trusted to keep people safe on rivers.”

The smile fades from Lance’s face and he breaks Keith’s gaze, staring out the windshield as he starts the truck. “I do know.”

Keith senses there’s something more to that statement, but Lance doesn’t offer it up and he doesn’t push it. Instead, he instructs Lance out of town and towards the correct turn-off and eventually Lance turns some music on and the momentary solemness fades. Keith rolls down the window and lets the wind play against his face as they wind their way through the red rock outside of town, the sagebrush and saltbush scrub gradually transitioning to juniper and piñon, and then to sparse ponderosa pine. The wind smells of evergreen and wildflowers bob on the side of the road. Lance smiles.

“Haven’t been in the mountains for awhile,” he says. “I love the desert, but I need some green every once in awhile, you know? I kind of miss the mountains in Salt Lake.”

“Do you ski?” Keith asks, sticking his arm out the window to feel the wind against it. It’s much cooler now they’ve gained some elevation, but still beautifully sunny. Kosmo pushes against his shoulder and whines, wedging his head between Keith and the side of the truck to stick his nose into the breeze. 

Lance shrugs. “Everyone always asks that. A bit. Not much. People are always shocked if I say no, because skiing’s so big up there but, you know. Those resorts are fancy. It’s fucking expensive to be a skier. My family isn’t that loaded. You?”

Keith snorts. “Am I loaded? No.”

Lance rolls his eyes. “I meant, do you ski?”

Keith shakes his head. “Not a lot of skiing in Texas. And, yeah. Not much opportunity to learn when you’re stuck in the foster system.”

Lance’s intake of breath is almost lost in the sound of the wind through the window, but Keith still catches it and realizes his mistake. He grew so easy with Lance so fast he completely forgot he didn’t already know that Keith’s an orphan with a super fucked up childhood. And now they’re going to have to go through…all that. Fuck.

“I didn’t realize,” Lance says quietly. “…sorry. Didn’t mean to be insensitive.”

Lance doesn’t sound pitying, but Keith still hates the note of sadness in his voice. “It’s okay,” he bites out. “I forgot you didn’t know.”

Lance opens his mouth and closes it, seemingly unsure of what to say. A heavy silence falls, broken only by Kosmo’s excited whines. A string of his drool puddles on Keith’s shoulder. 

“Skiing sucks, anyway,” Lance says after a moment. “You’re just falling down a mountain. You always get snow in your pants, and sometimes you hit trees. The best part is hot chocolate in the parking lot when you’re done.”

Keith manages a laugh, pushing Kosmo away from his shoulder. “It sounds like you’re just really bad at skiing.”

Oh, I am for sure terrible at it.”

Another silence falls and Keith stares out the window at the white of the peaks against the sky and the play of aspen leaves in the sun and realizes suddenly that not a single person in this town aside from Shiro and Adam know what happened to him, about the years of foster care, about how his father died, about his mother. He glances at Lance. Open expression, sunburnt nose, long lashes filtering the sunlight. He’s chewing on his lip, looks a little desperate.

“My dad died when I was eight,” Keith says, clenching his fist in the fabric of his jeans. “My mom left when I was really young. I don’t really remember her at all. We’re not—I’m not sure if she’s alive or not. She left one day without any warning, according to my dad. He didn’t know much about her—her past or her family—when they got married, so there wasn’t any way to track her down. So for a long time, it was just us.”

Lance glances over at him, eyes soft. He looks at Keith’s white knuckles, the fabric crumpled in his fingers. “Keith. You don’t have to tell me. You don’t have to explain it. I’m sorry. I was just surprised.”

“No,” Keith says, speaking around a lump in his throat. He’s not sure why he’s doing this—he might like Lance a lot, but all things considered, they still barely know each other. Why should Keith trust him with this, this deep, hidden part of himself?

And yet, he does.

“I want you to know,” he says. “I don’t need to hide it from you.”

Lance chews on his lip a bit more. “No,” he says finally. “You don’t _need_ to hide anything from me. But you don’t need to tell me anything you don’t want to, either.”

Kosmo whines again in his ear and rests his head on Keith’s shoulder. He takes comfort in the panting, slobbery warmth of him. “Well, I do want to,” he says. “I want to tell you that my dad was a firefighter, and he died in a house fire when I was eight. He went back in to try to save the family’s fucking _dog_ because that’s the kind of thing he’d always do, and the house collapsed on them both. And I didn’t have any relatives on his side, and no one knew anything about my mom’s side, so I went into foster care and bounced around for years and years. I was a pretty shitty kid, honestly. Always getting into trouble. But there were some really shitty places, too. And then I met Shiro, and things kind of stabilized. He was my foster brother for a few years, and we kept in touch after he left and went to college. He…he introduced me to climbing, he believed in me, he let me come live with him. He’s the closest thing I have to family. He’s the only person who’s never just…left.”

And then he snaps his mouth shut because yeah, that was a little deeper than he meant to go. Lance seems to understand what he’s saying, if the tightening of his grip on the steering wheel is anything to go by. 

“Sometimes,” he says through the boulder in his throat, “I have trouble, like… _being_ with other people. I don’t—I’m not good at talking, sometimes. Or communicating. Or, like, being good to people.”

Lance turns to look at him and the openness of his eyes makes Keith’s heart skip a beat. “That’s okay,” he says.

“It’s _okay_?”

Lance smiles, soft and real. “Yeah. I don’t know if you’re trying to scare me away from you, but if you are you’re gonna have to do better than that. I already know you’re bad at people sometimes. Remember how we met? Remember the bar?”

Keith breaks his gaze and feels himself blushing. “Yeah. Sorry again about that. Again.”

Lance laughs. “It just proves that I’m also bad at people, sometimes. Or at communicating. It’s okay, Keith.”

He unclenches his fist from his jeans and smooths out the rumpled fabric. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” He’s not sure what exactly this agreement is, because it seems like something deeper than Lance just telling him it’s not a deal-breaker that he’s an awkward fuck. In fact, he’s not even sure that’s what just happened. It seems like they were discussing something below the surface, but he isn’t sure what and he doesn’t know how to clarify it.

Lance is still talking. “I think saying sorry about all that—like, the foster care and stuff—is kind of insensitive, I guess. Or, like, unhelpful. So I won’t say that, but I will say that I’m happy you’re here, Keith Kogane. Happy you’re here and that our paths crossed.”

He feels his own grin overtaking his face, combining with a flush that heats his cheekbones. “Thanks,” he says. “You too.”

Lance glances over at him again. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

They’re staring at each other and smiling so hard they almost miss the turnoff to the trailhead. Keith curses and points wildly at the road sign and Lance twists the wheel and they swerve and bump down the dirt road under a shivering green canopy of aspen far too quickly and Keith starts laughing, almost uncontrollably, deep guffaws like he hasn’t laughed in ages. Lance joins him and they’re both in hysterics until they jolt to a stop in the parking lot and the giggles fade away, until Lance is just looking at him, smile playing on his lips, expression open and honest. 

“Can I kiss you?” he asks quietly, and Keith nods. Lance leans across to him and cups his face in his hands—excruciatingly gentle—and kisses him.

Keith’s not high this time, but Lance still tastes good—like chai and spearmint—and smells good—deodorant and juniper and a hint of sweat—and Keith melts into it. 

He’d stay there forever, if it wasn't for Kosmo whining in his ear and trying to force his body through the tiny gap between Keith’s seat and the door.

“God,” he whispers against Lance. “You’re _so good_ —you’re _lips_ —but, Kosmo—“

“Right,” Lance says breathlessly. “The hike. We should. Go.”

Keith looks at him, hat askew, lips red, and wants to crawl into the back of the truck and get to it, to hell with the hike, and Kosmo, and the fact that it’s broad daylight and the parking lot and adjacent campground are crawling with wholesome families. 

But. Broad daylight. And wholesome families.

“Yeah,” he breathes, drawing back.

“Finish later?” Lance asks, offering a crooked grin.

“ _Yeah,_ ” Keith says emphatically, and Lance laughs.

“Get _back,”_ he orders Kosmo, pushing him into the backseat as he untangles himself from his seatbelt and slides out of the truck. As he does so, two large bottles of sunscreen dislodge from under the passenger seat and fall to the dusty ground. Bending to pick them up, he recognizes them.

He sold Lance both of these, weeks and months ago. He remembers him, watching as Keith spilled a burrito down his shirt with a cocky grin. Neither of these bottles look like they’ve ever been used. Unsurprising. Even a river guide couldn’t have used all the sunscreen Lance bought in such a short amount of time. And it was a rainy, cloudy spring.

“Got a lot of use out of these, huh?” he asks, holding them up so Lance can see. He flushes deep red and drops his water bottle, swearing as it rolls under the truck. Keith’s laughing when he reappears, clutching the water bottle and redder than before. 

“Well, I needed some reason to come into the store, didn’t I?” he says defensively, water bottle held up like a shield against his chest. 

“You could have just said hi and introduced yourself instead of acting like a cocky weirdo with a sunscreen addiction.”

“Yeah, well, you could have done something other than glare at me every time I poked a toe past the doorway! You’re not the most approachable person, you know.”

Shame immediately slides through him and he stops laughing, dropping his gaze. Because Lance is right. He may have been annoying as hell, but Keith hadn’t exactly been nice to him. 

“Sorry,” he says quietly. “I know.”

Lance’s expression falls. “Hey, hey. I mean. It’s fine. I was totally being weird about it. I’m just happy you still gave me a chance after all that.”

“I’m glad _you_ gave _me_ a chance. Shit, man, I almost decked you in a bar.”

“Well…thank god for Hunk, then, huh? Good thing we both know him.”

Keith thinks about Hunk encouraging him to text Lance that horrible, hungover morning at work. “Yeah,” he says, slamming the door of the truck shut. “Thank goodness.”

Lance slams his own door and comes around to Keith’s side, squeezing him around his shoulders as he clips Kosmo’s leash to his collar. “Remind me to thank him in person the next time I see him, kay?”

Keith nods dumbly as Lance sets off across the parking lot ahead of him, whistling cheerfully. The dude _whistles in public._ His shoulders burn under his t-shirt where Lance touched him. That squeeze was so familiar, so casually affectionate. Keith hasn’t had anything like that from someone other than Shiro in _years._ Literal years.

Okay, so. He follows Lance up the trail, curving along the shoreline of the placid Warner Lake, snowcapped peaks reflected perfectly in the still water, Lance chattering away about some weird clients on his last river trip. Okay, so, just maybe, things are not totally okay. Things _have been_ okay. He’s happy. _He’s happy_! He likes his job and he loves living with Shiro and Adam and Matt and he loves where he lives. He’s got some friends and he likes his hookup habit, he really does. It’s been good, the last five years. Better than the previous ten by a long, long, long shot. 

But maybe. Maybe he wants someone who will stay the night and kiss him in the morning. Maybe he wants someone who lets his dog slobber all over him and laughs while it happens. Maybe he wants someone who actually wants to hang out with him, to get to know him outside random sexual encounters, who wants to eat breakfast burritos and watch sunsets and go hiking. Maybe he wants someone who’ll listen to his tragic backstory and not run the other direction. Maybe he wants someone who he’s comfortable talking about that shit to in the first place. Maybe he wants someone who wraps an arm around his shoulders and gives him a squeeze.

Maybe he wants something different.

He hasn’t thought about this for a long time. His last actual relationship was a weird thing with a guy in Oregon that started quick and fizzled out before long and he hasn’t tried since. Mostly because he figures he’s pretty good at fucking but he’s not very good at getting to know people, at being vulnerable enough for things to go any deeper. It takes effort and work and it hasn’t seemed worth it. And, the eternal issue—the dating pool in Moab. Or lack thereof.

It was just all too much effort. Always.

Or maybe Keith’s lazy.

Or maybe there was never anyone worth it before.

“And this lady—I swear to god—she looked me in the eyes and said, ‘I think you should know I swim at a pool where _Olympians_ train’, and I said, ‘so you’re an Olympic swimmer’ and she said ‘well, no, but I know Olympians _personally”._ And I said, ‘that’s wonderful, ma’am, but that certainly doesn’t mean I’m comfortable with letting you swim outside the boat when we’re about to enter Class IV rapids’. And she just, like, rolled her eyes at me and,—remember, she _already has her life jacket off_ —and just jumps overboard. And her idiot husband starts clapping and yells ‘good for you, honey!’, and he’s eyeing me like he’s daring me to say something and I don’t fucking know what to do, but thankfully Slav is in the other boat and he’s a lot more authoritative than I am so he just calmly tells her she has an 87% chance of being seriously injured or killed if she's outside the boat going through the rapids and needs to get back in or we’ll have to pull out early and nobody will get any money back even though the trip will be shortened by half a day. And the other passengers all gave her the stink eye till she got back in the boat, but she and her idiot husband didn’t talk to me for the entire rest of the day! Like, what the fuck! Sorry, Susan-From-Connecticut, for trying to keep you _alive_!”

“That’s fucked up,” Keith says, even though he was too wrapped up in his thoughts to hear the first part of the story. “White middle aged ladies from Connecticut are the worst in every way.”

Lance throws up his hands, turning to look at him. “It’s _always_ Connecticut!”

“Or Rhode Island.”

“True. But, if you think Susan-From-Connecticut is bad, get a load of this group we took on an overnighter last week, when it was raining so hard. I had a lady who asked if the rafts had a pop-up cabin she could go in to get out of the rain!”

Keith lets Kosmo off the leash and he bounds forward, running up the trail and then back to them over and over as Lance talks, loud and exuberant, waving his hands around. Keith listens, laughs, interjects a comment every once in awhile, but mostly watches him. Skin glowing in the sunlight, hair tousled, eyes sparkling.Clusters of lupine and tiny yellow daisies sway in the breeze beside the trail and the leaves of the aspen rustle above them. The mountains rise above them, getting closer as they head for the base of the nearest peak, Haystack Mountain. Before long, they hit another dirt road and follow it to the shore of Oowah Lake, small and dark blue, tucked between tall ridges. A cluster of people sit at the end closest to the road, a few of them fishing, others with picnics. Keith takes the lead and beckons Lance further up the trail, along the side of the lake through a stand of thick dark pines until they reach a small grassy area between trees. Bright yellow arnica dot the grass and he spots a few purple shooting stars swaying in the breeze by the shore. It’s prettier than he remembers.

“Wow,” Lance breathes, and stretches his arms above his head like he’s trying to embrace it all. “It’s beautiful! Shit, I missed water!”

Keith stares at him. “You literally work on the river.”

“Yeah, but it’s different water than this. Desert water and mountain water are two different things. This is mountain water.”

Keith shrugs. “Whatever you say.”

Lance refuses to be cowed by Keith’s ribbing and whips off his shirt before Keith can blink; shimmying out of his jeans until he’s in nothing but a pair of bright blue boxer briefs. 

Keith’s caught for a moment on the dimples on his lower back, the smooth stretch of the muscles of his shoulders. He stands there like an idiot, not moving, as Kosmo joyfully bounds into the water. Lance laughs as his shins are splashed, shrieks at the cold, turns to beckon to Keith, catches him staring. He smirks.

“Like what you see?”

“You know I do,” Keith says, tries to sound nonchalant. If he takes his jeans off, there might be a slightly too-obvious bulge. He drags his gaze away, tries to think of non sexy stuff. Foot fungus. Coran’s mustache. Boobs. The moldy sourdough starter Shiro pulled from the back of the fridge last week.

“Come on,” Lance says, and dives into the water.

“This water is gross!” he yells at Lance, because it is, kind of. Shallow and a bit scummy, though it’s probably the freshest now that it will be all year. “And I hate water!”

Lance pops up and shakes his head like a dog, spraying water everywhere. When he finishes, it’s spiked across his forehead and dripping into his eyes. “This is a pond.”

Unfortunately, he’s right. This is pretty much exactly the level of water Keith is comfortable with. He sighs.

“Come on,” Lance says again. “I dare you!”

Well.

He can’t refuse that.

He strips out of his clothes, back to Lance, and takes several deep breaths. His bulge is back down to a manageable size, but he darts into the water quickly anyway, before Lance can get much of a look at it. Hissing at the cold, he gingerly makes his way along the slippery rocks and mud until he’s standing at Lance’s side. Lance grins at him, huge and open and happy, puts his hands on his shoulders, leans in…

And shoves him bodily underwater. Keith flails, shrieks, comes up spitting as Lance laughs.

“You asshole!” He surges forward, kicking his feet off the rocks, and tackles Lance around the waist, pushing him back into the water. They both go under, and for a brief moment Keith’s eyes open under the water. The greenish light filtering from the surface plays across Lance’s face, his hair swaying in the slight current like a living thing, his eyes closed, grinning. 

His eyes flick open and for a brief moment they stare at each other there beneath the surface, bodies strange, pale and distorted in the filtered light.

Keith runs out of air and breaks the gaze, surging back to the surface. 

After they’ve had their fill of the water, he lays back in the grass and Lance flops down beside him, flipping over onto his stomach and resting his head on his arms, tilted towards Keith. His back muscles ripple as he moves, bright drops of water glinting in the sun. Kosmo, tired from the exertion, lays down on his other side. Keith closes his eyes and watches the bright glow of the sun through his eyelids. He’s going to burn—he forgot to put on sunscreen, despite the supply in Lance’s truck—but he can’t bring himself to care. The warmth feels so good on his skin, the deepening summer heat of the valley softened up here beneath the peaks and the aspen leaves. The breeze knocks blades of grass against his cheeks and it smells like pine and even the kids shrieking at the other end of the lake by the parking lot can’t break the idyl of the moment. 

He almost drifts off under the warmth, but startles back to wakefulness at the touch of a finger on his bicep. 

Lance withdraws his hand as Keith blinks his eyes open. “Sorry,” he murmurs. “I just—that’s a really beautiful tattoo. I didn’t really see it when—well, you know. It was dark.”

Keith reaches up his own hand to trail over the lines. “You just startled me. You can touch it. Thanks.”

Lance replaces his hand, fingers cool against Keith’s sun-soaked skin. “How long have you had it?”

He lets his eyes slide shut again, the feel of Lance’s fingers on his skin somehow even more comforting. “I got it a year after I moved here. It’s meant to be the cliffs above the Colorado east of town.”

“It’s really cool,” Lance repeats, then withdraws his fingers with a sigh. “Wish I had a tattoo.”

Keith cracks his eyes open again. “Do you want one?”

Lance chuckles. “Sure I do. I want to look badass, too. But I’m not. I’m scared of needles.”

Keith laughs. He can’t help himself. “A tattoo gun isn’t really like a needle at all,” he says.

“Sure,” Lance says, laying his head back on his crossed arms but keeping his eyes on Keith. “But it’s the principle of the thing. I might get one after this summer, though, with some of the other guides. Commemoration of the last fun summer before recommitting myself to school.”

Keith stares at him. “What are you talking about? Didn’t you just graduate?”

“Grad school, baby,” Lance says, and winks at him. Something heavy settles in Keith’s stomach, twisting.

“Oh,” he manages. “Already?”

Lance shrugs. “I got a pretty good score on the GRE, so I don’t want to wait too long. Might be easier to get some fellowships, too, if I go sooner.”

Keith clears his throat. “What do you want to go back for?”

Lance grins. “Biological engineering. I did biology at Madison—I can’t remember if I told you—and yeah, I just really like the idea of mixing engineering with biological principles to solve problems—like, you know, for climate change, or ecosystem restoration. Like, the possibilities really are endless. Pavement that photosynthesizes, building materials that store carbon, plants that filter toxins out of water at higher rates. I think it’s really cool.”

His face lights up as he talks about it and Keith feels like he’s seeing an entirely different side of Lance—earnest and a bit nerdy and terrifyingly intelligent. 

“But,” Lance continues, “a lot of the grad programs for that sort of thing are at, like, MIT, or Stanford, or Johns Hopkins, so…not exactly easy. I need to take a few classes to qualify for most of them, so I’m gonna do that in Salt Lake this fall, and then think about applying for next fall. So, I guess I’ll probably have one more summer still, but. I don’t know. This feels like the last one before I have to get really serious, you know?”

Keith doesn’t. He never bothered to get serious, and now it’s too late. “Yeah,” he says anyway, even as his heart sinks. Lance, back in Salt Lake for the fall term, gone from Moab by the end of August. Three months from now. From Salt Lake to Cambridge or California or Baltimore or anywhere else in the world. Meanwhile, Keith in Moab, year after year, working in an outdoor store, climbing until his body gives out on him, and then what?

Suddenly, his lack of a plan doesn’t seem so freeing. It doesn’t seem like enough. It seems a little empty.

And, more immediate than that—three months. That’s not even to the end of the river season. Lance must be leaving the company early. Three months is short. Three months is nothing. Three months definitely isn’t long enough to start getting attached. 

And even if it was, Keith certainly isn’t enough of a reason for Lance to hold himself back. They might like each other, but Keith is only ever going to be a fun summer fling for Lance, a nice memory of the last summer he let himself be a dirtbag before getting serious.

“You ever think about going back?” Lance asks, light and casual, and Keith feels himself bristle and tries to hold it down.

“No,” he says shortly, and ends the conversation by walking away to take a piss in the trees.

* * *

Despite the uncomfortable revelations and the fact that any question of an actual relationship is pretty much out the window, he still wants to jump Lance’s bones, so after they grab burgers back in town he invites him over. Lance accepts with a look of relief, like he was afraid Keith’s been mad at him when Keith’s really just mad at himself.

It’s just…sometimes he does get tired of being a fuckup. Shiro would say he’s not a fuckup, Hunk would say that college isn’t for everyone and not really worth it anyway, Matt would say he’s got his life more together than he did at Keith’s age, but it’s still…difficult. In the face of Lance McClain, paragon of success, he can’t help but feel lesser.

But. He still wants to fuck him. And Lance pretty clearly wants that, too, so that makes Keith feel marginally better about it all. He’s determined to put it out of his head as Lance drives them back to his house, the sunset coloring the sky to the west, brushing over the cliffs. By some miracle, Shiro and Adam are out and Matt can be heard loudly playing Call of Duty in his room at the back of the house, so they slip into Keith’s room unseen and he allows himself to relax for a modicum of a second before he remembers the disaster he left his room in this morning.

“Uh,” he says, as Lance’s eyes sweep over the clothes strewn across the floor, the unmade mattress, the dog hair on the pillows, the pile of muddy gear in the corner. “Sorry. Um. About the mess.”

“Dude,” Lance says, “I live in a truck. It’s cool. How do you keep all these plants alive?” he gestures at Keith’s windowsill, lined with spider plants, succulents, and a pothos he’s started stringing up to the ceiling as the tendrils grow longer and longer. 

“Oh. Uh, luck I guess? And a south facing window.”

“Impressive.” Lance turns to him, grins, and crowds close, backing Keith up a few steps. Reaching out a hand, he shuts the bedroom door and pushes Keith up against it, one hand bracing up against his head, the other trailing up his stomach and under the hem of his t-shirt. Keith never thought he’d be the type to call a gaze “smoldering”, but that’s the only way to describe the way Lance looks right now.

And yeah, it’s doing it for him. He’s already half hard and Lance is close enough to feel it. He can’t find it in himself to feel embarrassed.

“God,” Lance says, breath hot against his ear. “You in this fucking shirt. I’ve wanted to jump you _all day_.”

“So do it,” Keith says, and crushes his lips against Lance’s.

It’s easy to remember the planes of Lance’s body, the feeling of him under his fingers, but now he gets to see him in the light, the warm glow of the lamp in the corner washing over his brown skin, settling in the hollows of his throat and collarbones. He tries to keep his eyes open, even as they start to undress, kissing savagely, drinking in the sight of him. The muscles—those _fucking_ arms—twisting and bunching under smooth skin, the fine hairs on his chest, the thicker band trailing down beneath the waistband of his pants, dark and a little curly. The precise dusky shade of his nipples, the shine of his lips, open as he pants when Keith scrapes his fingernails over them. 

Eventually Keith pushes him away, towards the mattress. Lance lands on his back with a huff of laughter and grins up at him, sinful in the dim light. Keith’s breath hitches at the sight of him and he climbs on top of him before he can think something too sappy like _he’s beautiful._

Lance arches under him, moans when he takes him into his mouth. Like the first time, it seems electric, instinctual—like they’re meant to be doing this, like there’s no other outcome. He slides down as low as his throat can take it and Lance gasps, writhes, one hand tight in his hair, the other gripping the bedsheets. 

“Fuck,” Lance breathes after an indeterminable amount of time—Keith’s taking it slow, he doesn’t want it to go too quickly—“Fuck me, Keith, please, _fuck me_.”

He takes it as dirty talk at first and keeps going, swallowing him down and fondling his balls a little, which breaks Lance off into wordless groans for a bit, but soon he says it again, deadly serious.  “Keith. I want you to fuck me. Stop sucking my dick and _fuck me_.”

Keith pulls away and wipes the drool off his chin. Lance, spread out below him, looks utterly debauched, lips red and bitten, sweat standing out in the hollow of his collarbone, flush spreading from his face down his chest. Truthfully, Keith would love nothing more than to fuck him, but that wasn’t exactly how he’d pictured this evening going.

“Wait,” he says. “Seriously?”

“Oh my _god,_ Keith, don’t fucking _tease_ me right now!”

“I—I’m not? I just didn’t think…”

“What?” Lance looks slightly annoyed now, under the lust. “Didn’t think I’d want to get fucked in the ass? Well, I do, and it’s been forever, and I didn’t think you’d have a problem with it!”

“No!” Keith says, waving his hands. “No, no, nonono, I _definitely_ don’t have a problem with it, I just…usually, I don’t top?”

“Oh.” Lance looks confused for a moment. “I mean, if you’re not comfortable doing it, or you’re not into it, I’m totally down to go the other way, I’m honestly good with whatever, I just…” he trails off, licks his lips, flicks his eyes up and down Keith’s body in a quick glance. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about your dick in me since I first saw it.”

“Really?” Keith asks after a moment, voice pathetically hopeful. He’d like to come off badass and dominant and self-assured here but instead he sounds like a kid who just got told he’s about to go to Disneyland. 

Lance, the bastard, laughs at him. “Really. But seriously, only if you’re okay with that.”

“I’m really, really okay with that,” Keith assures him. “I’m just…to be honest, I usually just have one night stands with closeted dudes, and they never want to bottom, so it’s…I just haven’t, in awhile. But…but, yeah, I—I want to.”

Lance grins at him, quick and bright. “Great! I even pooped for you!”

Mood: broken. “Gross, Lance,” Keith groans. “I thought I told you not to talk about shitting during sex.”

“You don’t mind,” Lance says, which is unfortunately true. Then he sits up slightly, taking Keith’s face between his hands, and kisses him, gentle and sweet. He draws back slightly, runs his thumbs over Keith’s cheekbones, and smiles at him. “You’re beautiful, sweetheart. I’ve never wanted to be fucked by someone so bad.”

Keith’s not sure anyone in his entire life has ever called him beautiful before Lance, or sweetheart, for that matter, and he’s not sure why he likes it so much. If anyone else said it it would feel mocking, maybe emasculating. When Lance says it, it’s with a touch of childlike awe, like he can’t believe Keith’s here in front of him, like he can’t believe how lucky he got. 

Come to think of it, Keith’s not sure anyone’s ever looked at or spoken to him with that level of affection, save for maybe Shiro and some dim, distant memories of his father.

It’s a bit overwhelming. He can feel the blush heating his cheeks under Lance’s fingers. “You, too,” he manages eventually.

“Thanks,” Lance says casually. “Now please put your fingers in my ass before I do it myself.”

“So patient,” Keith teases, and grabs the lube.

With how easy it goes, Lance did more than just shit during his trip to the bathroom right after they got to Keith’s house. He meets Keith’s questioning gaze with a wicked grin and arches up beautifully when Keith crooks his fingers and scissors them apart. It doesn’t take long before he’s loose and open, and there’s nothing to wait for. Keith’s painfully hard and Lance is demanding he “get inside already, _Jesus_ , Keith, I’m _dying_ here—Oh!”

Oh, indeed. Keith slides in and almost comes on the spot. He has to go completely still and squeeze his eyes shut to stop it from happening. _Shit_. He’d forgotten how good it feels to be inside someone, and Lance—Lance is tight, trembling heat, already rutting slightly against Keith as he chases sensations, moaning slightly. “Keith,” he whines, but he doesn’t get farther than that because Keith steels himself—he will _not_ come—and starts to move. Lance gasps and groans, plants his feet on the edge of the mattress and lifts himself to meet Keith thrust for thrust, like they’re competing in some strange game. Keith falls forward, braces himself above Lance with one hand and grabs his leg with the other, folding it up until Lance is bent nearly in half. He stretches like it’s no problem, flexible and smooth, and tips his head back as Keith adjusts his angle and pounds in harder, eyes closed, mouth open, tendons in his neck standing out. Keith knows he’s nailing his prostate with every thrust. Lance clenches around him, gasping, and Keith feels the heat curling in him, growing, stretching like an elastic band ready to break.

“Oh my god,” Keith groans, bending forward further, resting his forehead in the hollow of Lance’s throat. “Fuck, Lance, I’m not gonna last.”

“I—“ Lance groans, breath hitching as Keith pushes deeper. “I—neither am I— _god_ , Keith, touch me, touch me, _please_ —“

Keith is really not going to last much longer and it would be nice if they could come together, so he grabs Lance’s dick and starts jerking him off in rhythm with his thrusts. Lance, bent nearly in half and practically gasping for air, curls his hand around the nape of Keith’s neck and pulls him into a kiss, deep and interrupted by his gasps until they’re not really kissing, just breathing each other’s air, lips resting together. 

Lance breaks the kiss, curling his fingertips into Keith’s neck hard enough to hurt. “Keith,” he says, “Keith, I’m gonna—I’m coming—“

Keith pushes his face into Lance’s neck and bites him, hard, the taste of salty sweat mixing with the natural musk of Lance’s skin. Lance cries out, loud, and jerks under him. He clenches hard around Keith, gasps, and comes, ropes of it shooting over Keith’s hand and both their chests. It lasts a long time—twenty seconds, maybe thirty—long enough for the clenching and the sound of his moans to send Keith over the edge, too, gasping into Lance’s neck. 

They’re left gasping, tangled together, Keith slumped fully on top of Lance, Lance’s hand running through Keith’s sweaty hair, come loose from his bun. 

“Shit,” Keith breathes as he gathers his wits about him enough to prop himself up. “Sorry if I crushed you.”

Lance grins at him. “You didn’t. That was hot as fuck. Holy shit, Keith, you’re _amazing.”_

“No,” Keith says, gazing down at him, his hazel-gold eyes, his sweaty hair. “You are.”

“We both are,” Lance says, grinning cat-like, lazy and pleased with himself. 

Keith sighs and carefully pulls out. Lance groans, and as Keith falls to the side he sees his cum dripping out of Lance. It’s so hot his dick twitches a tiny bit, until he realizes what it means.

“Oh my god,” he says, frozen in horror, heart stopped. “We forgot a fucking condom.”

“Huh?” Lance mumbles. He’s got his arm thrown over his eyes and sounds half asleep. “Oh. Whoops.”

“Oh my god,” Keith says. He’s sitting up, casting around for something he can use to clean Lance up, toilet paper, a washcloth, a t-shirt, _anything_. This is terrible. He’s the worst person in the world. Shiro’s voice rings in his ears: _It’s my due diligence to remind you to use protection._ “Oh my god, I’m _so sorry_.”

Lance peeks at him from under his arm. “Dude, it’s fine. I forgot too. It’s not ideal, and now I have to shit out your cum, but it’s not the end of the world. Keith. Keith, are you good?”

Keith’s off the mattress and on the floor, grabbing a dirty t-shirt with visible sweat stains and wiping between Lance’s legs. “Sorry, sorry, this is gross, I’ll grab a washcloth—“

“Keith!” Lance sits up, grabbing Keith’s arm. Keith’s sure he can feel the rabbit beat of his pulse from the mere touch. “Calm down! It’s okay! I really don’t mind! This is totally something we should have talked about first, and I’m sorry, but I was so distracted by how insanely sexy you are I just forgot! But it’s okay, I’m clean, we’re all good. Don’t go on a guilt trip, we just had a great time.”

“I haven’t gone to the doctor in a year,” Keith whispers from the floor, mortified. “I don’t fucking know if I’m clean, Lance, and if I’m not I just fucked you over big time.”

“Oh,” Lance says, and drops his arm. Keith figures this is the moment when Lance will leave and he probably won’t see him again for the rest of the summer. Or, he will see him, because Moab is tiny, and it will be the most painfully awkward thing ever. 

“Well,” Lance says, “you should get tested and let me know, but it’s still okay.”

“It’s not,” Keith says, confused as to why Lance isn’t yelling at him and leaving.

“No, Keith.” Lance shimmies off the mattress and kneels in front of Keith on the floor. It occurs to Keith how stupid they must look: kneeling on the floor naked, facing each other, Keith holding a PCC ROCK THE REC 2014! t-shirt covered in dried sweat and fresh cum, Lance with said cum still leaking from between his legs, Keith on the verge of literal tears. It’s enough to make him laugh, though it sounds strangled and kind of like he might be dying.

“Keith? I’m really not bothered. Seriously. I mean, I hope you don’t have any horrible diseases, but you can’t exactly knock me up, right? It’s not the end of the world, and, to be honest, it’s actually super hot. I’ve never bottomed without a condom, and I’ve always wanted to, and this was not the ideal well-communicated circumstance, but it was still really great, okay? So can you put that shirt down and come cuddle me? Please?”

Keith puts the t-shirt down. It’s gross. He definitely made it worse by using a dirty t-shirt to wipe Lance down. _Why_ is he such a fuckup?

“I’m sorry,” he croaks again, because he his.

“So am I,” Lance says, and takes his hand. “This is on both of us, okay?”

“Okay,” he says slowly, and takes a deep breath. 

“Okay,” Lance agrees. “Come back to the bed.”

“Let me get a washcloth. At least.”

Lance sighs, stands, pulls Keith up with him. “Okay,” he agrees, and follows Keith to the bathroom, which Keith didn’t expect. He stands there while Keith wets down a washcloth, and then takes it from him, wiping himself down while Keith stares at him. 

“Go pee, Keith,” he orders, swiping the washcloth between his legs. “You don’t need a UTI.”

“Oh,” he says, and pees because Lance is right. At least one of them is still thinking clearly. Lance takes his turn while Keith washes his hands and wipes off his dick. Then he brushes his teeth for good measure. Lance comes up behind him as he spits and winds his arms around his waist, brown skin stark against the pale of Keith’s belly.

“You good?” he asks, nuzzling his nose into Keith’s shoulder and leaving the barest brush of lips on the skin. Keith looks at them there in the mirror, tangled together, still naked, toothpaste stuck in the corners of his lips and thinks _this, this, this is what I’ve been missing, this is what I’ve been wanting all along._

And Lance is still leaving. This is still a short term thing. But they can keep doing this. He can enjoy it while it lasts, right? It’s not like he’s going to fall in love or anything drastic like that. He’s not in that deep.

Right?

“Yeah,” he says to Lance and Lance smiles at him in the mirror. “Let’s go to bed.”

* * *

The problem is, they don’t stop hanging out and the more they hang out the more Keith falls for him. His brain knows it’s fruitless, knows Lance is leaving, knows this is a fun, stupid fling for him, knows he’s way more obsessed than Lance is, and yet. His heart overrides his brain and he lets himself spend more and more time with Lance and falls deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole. 

He goes to the doctor for a refill on his prescription inhaler and gets tested while he’s at it, and he’s clean, much to his relief. He supposes his panic was a slight overreaction—he’s only had sex a few times this year before Lance, and always with condoms. Lance seems happy when he tells him, but still mostly unbothered about the whole incident. “It’s not like I was planning on having sex with anyone else,” he says, offhand, like that isn’t something huge and important and unexpected. It leaves Keith lying awake at night for three days straight, analyzing his words and wondering if that means they’re exclusive—it’s not like _he’s_ running around fucking anyone else, either, so he guesses they are, but then does that mean they’re doing more than just hooking up? Are they dating? Of course, dating doesn't necessarily mean you're exclusive. They can’t be dating, though, Lance is leaving in two months. It would be stupid. Can you be exclusive fuckbuddies?

They should really stop hanging out. Keith should draw on his extensive store of self preservation methods and call it quits, save himself some future pain. He doesn’t. In fact, any free time he has that he doesn’t spend with Lance starts feeling like a waste of time entirely. They hike together on their days off, take Kosmo on walks, go to potlucks at Hunk and Shay’s and make dinner with Shiro, Adam, Matt and Pidge. Lance spends more and more nights in Keith’s bed as the summer creeps on. The nights barely hover below ninety and Lance physically can’t sleep in his tin-can of a truck anymore. Keith is more than happy to oblige him with a mattress and air conditioning. He still camps by the river sometimes, and sometimes Keith joins him and they fuck in the tiny confines of Lance’s tent, or sometimes outside of it, when it’s too hot even for the thin walls of nylon, under a ceiling of jumbled stars, the rush of the river in the background. Despite himself, Keith lets Lance settle into his life like he’s always been there, and sometime around the end of June, he decides to just try to ignore the fact that Lance is leaving, to ignore the passage of days as they flit past and just enjoy it. They don’t need to define anything, not really, because there’s an end date, and there’s no reason not to just enjoy it until he can’t anymore and then get over it all then.

So he lets himself forget and, despite himself, he trips face-first into love with Lance McClain.

He tries to pretend he’s just really into him, which is true, because Lance has a body like a god and a cock that leaves Keith’s mouth watering when he thinks too much about it, and it’s only getting better as the summer goes by and he gets more toned and tanned and freckled. 

But. It’s not just that. It’s the way Lance laughs, open and delighted, the way his eyes crinkle and one eyebrow stays a little more arched than the other. It’s the terrible way he flirts with cashiers and bartenders and coworkers, which Keith can’t even be jealous about because it’s just _so bad_. It’s the way he falls so easily into friendship with everyone Keith’s ever cared about—Shiro and Adam love him, he, Matt, and Pidge have epic video game tournaments that usually end with violent pillow fights, he turns out to be surprisingly knowledgable about home brewing and helps Keith and Rizavi with their best batch yet. Even he and Allura get over their rocky beginning, bonding over a shared obsession with Democracy Now! that leads them to dissecting (with strongly worded commentary) the last week’s worth of news every time they see each other. It’s the way he sways his hips to the music when they’re cooking meals together and how he can’t crack an egg without getting bits of eggshell in the bowl with it. It’s how good he is with kids, it’s the way he once stopped the truck in the middle of the road to get out and carry a desert toad stranded by the center lines to the opposite side, it’s the look on his face when he rolls down the window and belts out the lyrics to his favorite songs, it’s his determination to be as helpful and kind as possible to all his friends and colleagues, it’s the fact he calls his parents three times a week at 5:30 PM sharp so he can say hello to everyone right before they sit down to dinner.

Yeah.

Keith is whipped and at night, sometimes alone, usually next to a softly snoring Lance, he lays awake and stares at the darkness of his ceiling and realizes he’s fucked. The rest of the time, he tries to ignore it and generally succeeds. That doesn’t stop the problem from building, though. 

Before he knows it, it’s early August. It’s brutally hot, hasn’t rained in over two months now, the entire world shimmering with mirages of heat. He hasn’t been climbing in ages because the sandstone is literally too hot to touch. Every time he steps outside he feels like he turns instantly into a raisin—shrunken, dry, and wrinkled. 

For the first time ever, he’s jealous of Lance’s job. The rivers, at least, stay a little cooler, winding through the bottoms of their shady canyons. They do go swimming a few times, but the waters of the shallow, slow meanders under the low cliffs near town are as warm as a bathtub.

They’re laying on the front lawn late one night, staring up at the stars glinting high and clear far above and passing a joint back and forth when Lance finally brings it up.

“So,” he says. “You made me a promise, if I remember correctly.”

“Did I,” Keith says, mind buzzing pleasantly from the weed. 

“Yes,” Lance rolls over to face him, bracing himself on an elbow. The glint of his white teeth in the darkness. The smell of him, salty sweat and sage. “Stillwater Canyon. Don’t tell me you’d forgotten.”

“I’d forgotten,” Keith deadpans, though he hasn’t. He’s been dreading Lance bringing it up, hoping he’d forget. 

“You didn’t,” Lance says fondly, because he can read him like that now. Keith grimaces and gestures for the joint. Lance passes it over.

“This week. Can you get some days off? We could do it in four. Well, four and a half.”

Keith grimaces.

“ _Keith_ ,” Lance whines. “The river’s so low now you could probably walk all the way across. And the currents aren’t strong in Stillwater. I promise, it’s safe. I wouldn’t put you in danger, sweetheart, you know that.”

Keith sighs, exhales smoke that lazily twists up towards the stars. Even now, Lance calling him _sweetheart_ still makes him blush. “I know.”

“And it’s so hot,” Lance says softly, like an afterthought. “It’ll be cool there, on the water.”

Keith sighs again. “That does sound nice.” 

Lance reaches over and traces his profile with a single fingertip, brushing down his forehead, over his nose, lingering on his lips. “Please,” he says softly. “I really want to take you before I have to leave.”

And just like that, Keith comes slamming back into himself, the buzz of the weed and the peace of the evening disappearing in a flash. Lance hasn’t talked about leaving before now, though he knows they’ve both been counting down, watching calendar pages flip by since the end of May. There was a tiny part of Keith that hoped, stupidly, that Lance had decided not to leave after all, that he would stay through the fall, finish the river season, remain as the nights grew colder and the mornings crisp, as the cottonwoods by the river turned to gold and lost their leaves, sloughing them off to swirl in the river’s currents, tiny yellow hearts borne miles and miles downstream. Maybe he’d go back to school in the spring, instead. Maybe he wouldn’t go back at all.

But no. Here he is, confirming what Keith’s been pushing to the side for three solid months, the elephant in the room, the edge of the cliff Keith’s been running towards full tilt since the first time Lance walked into the store.

He wants to cry. Instead, he surges up and ends up on top of Lance, leaning over him and kissing him desperately, like he can hold onto this boy between his fingers if he just kisses hard enough, if he just refuses to ever stand up.

Lance laughs a little at his attack, but kisses back with equal urgency. “Wow,” he says, “is that a yes?”

Keith knows that every moment he spends with Lance between now and his departure will only make the fall off that cliff more painful. He doesn’t care.

“Yeah,” he says, and kisses him deeper.

* * *

Lance makes him get up at five AM for an “early start” the day they start their trip, and Keith hates him for it. He mostly sits around, useless and bleary-eyed, as Lance surveys their pile of gear and mutters to himself. It’s a strange reversal from the first trip they went on together, Keith in charge and sure of himself, Lance nervous. 

Right now, he’s too tired to be nervous, but he’s sure it’ll come. Lance makes him coffee and ghosts a hand over his shoulders every time he passes by and doesn’t complain once about Keith being lazy and unhelpful. Probably because he knows Keith doesn’t know a thing about prepping for a river trip and would just be in the way, but he appreciates it anyway. He even goes through Keith’s own backpack, making sure he’s packed everything Lance deems important. At 6 on the dot, he prods Keith into the truck, hands him another travel mug of coffee, and sets them on their way. 

If he was sleepy before, the road down to the Mineral Bottom boat launch wakes him up pretty quickly. They’re borrowing a raft from the company Lance works for, which means they have a giant trailer attached to the back of the truck and Keith honestly can’t believe it makes it around some of the corkscrew corners of the tiny, switchbacked dirt road winding down the side of the canyon. He’s white knuckled for most of it, staring at the edge of the road where it crumbles off the side of the cliff, and Lance laughs at him the whole way. It’s not the most auspicious start.

“Slow down!” he hisses, as Lance takes a curve at ten miles an hour instead of Keith’s preferred five.

“Relax,” Lance says. “Do you know how many times I’ve driven this road? In work trucks, too, which are way bigger than Blue.”

“I don’t care!”

“If you’re worried, you can just lay back and close your eyes. That’s what I do.” He leans his head back and closes his eyes as they curve around a corner.

“Very funny, Lance,” Keith snaps, but he eventually takes his advice and just closes his eyes, trying to ignore the jolts of the truck over potholes, the creak of the trailer in the back, and the sharp turns that send him swaying into the window. By the time they make it to the bottom, Keith’s already sweat through his t-shirt and they haven’t even made it onto the water yet.

“Remember,” Lance says as they launch the boat into the still, muddy waters. “I’m a professional. I promise you won’t die.”

“I know,” he snaps, and really, he’s being kind of rude about it all, but Lance is used to it by now and just grins at him and pushes off.

It really is an aptly-named place. The river is wide and glassy as a mirror, the cliffs reflecting perfectly on the smooth sheen of the surface. Lance estimates they’re moving at about five miles an hour, faster than he was expecting. “They must have gotten some rain in the mountains,” he says, and sets the paddle back into the bottom of the boat, tipping back and drawing the brim of his hat—the one Keith sold him begrudgingly back in March, now dirty, sun bleached, and stained with sweat—low over his eyes as he stares at the sky. “We don’t really need to paddle very often. We can just chill. Pass me a beer?”

“It’s 8 AM,” Keith points out.

“We’re on river time now, baby,” Lance grins at him, and Keith can’t help but grin back, even though the expanse of water around him makes his heart race and his palms a little clammy. He reaches over and tosses him a beer. Lance catches it deftly and opens it, letting the foam drip over his hand and into the bottom of the boat. “You should have one, too,” he advises. “Might calm you down.”

“I don’t need calming down.”

“Right.” Lance side-eyes him. Keith opens a beer.

It does make him feel better. Laying back in the boat, toes brushing Lance’s, the morning air and the cool of the river fending off the heat of the desert, he lets himself relax. The gentle lap of water and the slight swell of waves under the raft sends him into a peaceful reverie. He almost manages to forget he’s surrounded by an extremely powerful body of water. The cliffs slide by, insects whine in the tamarisks and willows, Lance nudges him to point out great blue herons picking their way through the shallows and Cooper’s Hawks wheeling high above. The first part of the canyon is open, the cliffs low and the floodplain wide, the riparian corridor giving way to sagebrush flats that run up to the cliffs, so Keith’s glad Lance forced them to start so early. By the time the hottest part of the day comes around two, the cliffs are closer and rise higher, twisted formations and smooth slabs towering up to the cloudless sky. Every so often they hear mountain bikers above them on the White Rim, or climbers calling to each other from the cliffs, voices echoing eerily across the water. A group of kayakers pass them around lunchtime, but otherwise they’re left alone in the vastness of the river.

Lance is in his element, and Keith’s glad he gets to see him like this. Surrounded by water, he’s grinning and light, confident in all his movements and reassuring in his steadiness. When they don’t have to paddle, he leans over the side of the raft, chin resting on the edge, and lets his fingertips trail through the water. 

They camp the first night on a sandbar under some ancient cliff dwellings, red bricks peeking out from the cliff walls, doorways dark holes that beckon him. He clambers up the scree in the waning light after they eat dinner and peek in. The floors are smooth rock, sand marred with a few footprints. He thinks of all the feet that have walked here before him and it sends chills up his spine. He perches up on the cliff for a moment, looking down at their tent, at Lance puttering around cleaning the cooking pot and whistling. The whisper of a breeze curls against his cheek and his chest feels hollow again, looking at Lance down there, small amongst the rocks.

He climbs down quickly to rejoin him and tries to stuff the hollow feeling with a few cans of beer and the taste of Lance’s lips against his own.

* * *

Day two. They pass Turk’s Head, a massive profile of rock the river cups in a tight gooseneck and head into the canyon in earnest. The number of herons multiplies, the cliffs grow taller and the formations more twisted. The water stays in shade for more daylight hours, which Keith is thankful for. Lance jumps into the water regularly to stay cool, permanently shirtless, shoulders deeply tanned and peeling a little. Keith still hasn’t gathered his courage enough to fully jump out of the boat, even though the river is slow and shallow in most spots. He wades out in the evening or when they stop on a sandbar for a slow lunch, but otherwise he can’t bring himself to do it. Walking in from the shore leaves him with a safety net. Jumping in in the middle of the day, he’s not sure his feet could touch the bottom, even if Lance assures him they would.

On day three, though, he finally breaks. It’s hot as hell and the canyon walls aren’t tall enough to shade them along this stretch and he feels like his blood is literally boiling. His nose is red and peeling, his eyes hurt from the brightness even from behind sunglasses, and even Lance is wilting in the face of his bad mood. The water can’t be that cool with the sun heating it like this, but it has to be better than the burn of synthetic rubber against his bare back. 

“Okay, okay, shut up, I’m coming in,” he gripes as Lance stares at him with puppy dog eyes from the water. He wiggles to the edge of the raft, dips his toes in. The water is cooler than he expected. Feels good. If he stays close, with a hand on the raft, he’ll be fine. He sighs, scoots forward a little more—the raft tips alarmingly and he slides off ungracefully and splashes into the water. 

He maybe shrieks a tiny bit when it happens. It’s not his most impressive moment.

And—here, his greatest fear. The water is brown and murky, he can’t see anything and his eyes sting when he opens them. The current isn’t fast, but it’s certainly there, tugging at his hair, brushing past his legs. And when he stretches his toes, he can’t find the bottom. 

He surfaces choking, gasping for breath. The raft isn't in front of him. Neither is Lance. He twists his head around, panicked, and there they are—fifteen feet behind him. Lance is laughing, hand on the side of the raft. 

“Man, that was, like, the least graceful thing I’ve ever seen you do!”

“Lance,” Keith whispers, and water sloshes into his mouth when he opens it. He coughs, stretches his toes again, slips under the surface, the current carrying him. Why isn’t Lance moving? He’s clearly standing, steady on his feet. Are those few inches he has on Keith making that much of a difference? Or is Keith just in a deep spot?

The river isn’t moving quickly, and the current isn’t holding him down, but he feels himself starting to panic. He surfaces again, tries to move towards Lance, but his legs aren’t working.

Lance isn't laughing anymore. “Come back, dude!”

“Lance,” he says again, louder, and Lance finally seems to realize something’s wrong. 

“You okay?”

His chest is constricting, arms aching from keeping his head above water. “It’s too deep.”

Keith sees the moment Lance gets it, his eyes widening, before he goes under again. And—oh. There’s the bottom. His feet brush slippery rocks and kick up sand. He opens his eyes and squints up at the sun filtering through the water. Yeah, he’s at least a foot or two under the surface. Definitely not even close. He kicks off the bottom to get another breath of air, which is worryingly shallow and accompanied by a mouthful of terrible tasting water. Before he manages to open his eyes, strong arms encircle his waist, pulling him into another body.

“Fuck,” Lance says into his hair. “It is deep over here. I’m sorry.”

He coughs, choking, shaking in Lance’s arms. “Get me out of here,” he whispers. “Get me out.”

“Hang on,” Lance says, “the boat’s right here.”

“Not the boat,” he says as clearly as he can. “I need to get out.”

Thankfully, Lance seems to get it and starts towing them towards shore without any more questions. Keithjust clings to him and tries to breathe until he can feel the sand under his feet and stumbles up onto dry land, tripping over his own feet and landing on his knees in the sand, clutching fistfuls of it and closing his eyes. He tries to focus on the warmth of sand and stave off the panic of water. Behind him, Lance splashes back into the river to get the raft and Keith’s left alone for an indeterminate amount of time, heartbeat thundering in his ears until Lance’s Chacos appear under his nose and he feels his hands on his shoulders.

“Keith,” Lance is saying. “Are you okay? Talk to me. Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” he chokes out, even though it’s not entirely true yet. “I’m good.”

“You can’t swim,” Lance says, and it’s not a question, it’s a statement. “You can’t fucking swim. That’s why you don’t like water. You should have told me! That’s something I need to know _before_ I force you into a multi day river trip!”

“It’s lame,” Keith mutters, spitting out a last mouthful of river water onto the sand and sitting up slightly so he can see Lance’s face, brows furrowed, concern and anger warring in his features. “I didn’t want you to know.”

“It’s not _lame_ ,” Lance says, annoyed. “It’s fine, I just need to know this shit! I would have made you wear a life jacket!”

“I wouldn’t have worn one even if you’d asked,” Keith says truthfully and Lance rolls his eyes. “Still. Why’d you jump in? You should know you don’t have to impress me by now.”

Keith rolls his eyes. “You said it was shallow! I’m fine if I can touch the bottom!”

Lance has the grace to look slightly sheepish. “It was shallow where I was. You just hit a deep spot ‘cause of the way you fell in.”

“I didn’t mean to fall!” Keith snaps, and Lance holds his hands out in a placating gesture. “I know, I know! Here,” he hands Keith a water bottle and Keith takes it gratefully, gulping down water to sooth his parched throat and slow his rapid pulse. Lance crouches next to him, a light hand on his shoulder.

“Why can’t you swim?” Lance asks softly after a few minutes go by and Keith isn’t actively shaking anymore.

“Group homes don’t tend to spend money on swimming lessons for all the fuckups stuck there,” Keith says gruffly, hoping Lance will drop it. “And my dad didn’t have money for that before he died.”

“Oh,” Lance says softly. Then, even quieter—“You’re not a fuckup.”

Keith just snorts in response. Eventually, Lance sighs and stands. “We should quit for the day, I think,” he says. “We’ve been making good time. If we put in a long day tomorrow we’ll still get out in time.”

“We don’t have to stop,” Keith says automatically, even though the thought of getting back into the raft right now sounds horrible. “I’m fine.”

Lance looks at him, still wet and curled on the sand where he fell, and just shakes his head. He pulls the boat fully onto the sand, unpacks their food bags and cooler, and brings Keith a sunhat and a beer. Keith accepts both reluctantly and Lance drops back onto the sand next to him, popping his own beer. “This spot’ll be in shade soon,” he says, and leans back on his elbows, looking up at the cliffs where canyon wrens dart and call to each other.

A long moment passes. Keith drinks half his beer and tries not to look at the water. Lance sips his slower, seemingly falling into a reverie, eyes half closed against the sun. 

“I used to be scared of water, too, you know,” he says suddenly, breaking Keith out of a detailed daydream of climbing the spire across the river from them. 

“What?” he says intelligently. Lance nods. “Oh, yeah. I mean, I’ve been around water since I was tiny, and we were doing family river trips before I can remember, but I was with my brother and some family friends on a hiking trip in Zion in middle school and we got caught in a flash flood."

Keith’s heart seizes and he turns to stare at Lance. “Really? What happened?”

Lance shrugs. “The classic thing, you know. We didn’t check the weather. It was beautiful in the park, no rain in the forecast, so we went for it. We wanted to do the full Narrows hike, all the way up to Big Spring.” He shuts his eyes, the lines between his thin eyebrows appearing as he frowns. “I just remember the water getting deeper and deeper, up to my chest, and the current getting stronger. We still thought everything was okay, it was kind of early in the season, so we just figured the river flow was still high. But then stuff started hitting us—sticks and branches and rocks. My legs got all bashed up and finally my friend’s dad realized what was happening and we turned back, started running, looking for a ledge or a even just a sandbank, something that was higher ground.”

He cuts off, biting his lip. Keith stares at him. “How’d you get out?”

Lance shakes his head. “Thankfully we were close to the junction with Orderville Canyon. There’s a wide spot where the canyons converge, some trees and higher ground. My friend’s dad made my brother and me and my friend climb trees. He and my friend’s older brother got up on some high ground and tried to hold onto some bushes.” He stops, swallows. “They got swept away.”

“They _what_?” Keith says, horrified.

Lance shakes his head. “Yeah. I remember my friend screaming his head off, trying to get down from the tree to help them. I was holding onto him to stop him from getting down. I remember the water coming around the tree, thinking it was gonna be ripped up and we were all going to get swept away with it.”

“Wha—were they okay?”

“His dad made it. Got pretty banged up, but he managed to get out near the paved trail by the trailhead. My friend’s brother was…he didn’t make it. They, uh. Didn’t find his body for awhile.”

Keith sits still, silent, horror dripping down from his chest to his stomach. “Oh my god,” he manages eventually. “That’s horrible.”

Lance laughs weakly. “Yeah.”

Keith thinks about Lance talking about flash floods earlier in the season, of his truck covered in red mud. He thinks of the passion in his voice when he talks about the rivers, when he remembers swimming in the ocean. He thinks of how peaceful he seems, floating down the canyon, fingers trailing through brown water.

“How?” he asks. “How’d you ever get back onto water after that? Why did you _want_ to?”

Lance shrugs. “It took me a couple of years. I was terrified of water, especially rivers. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. But I missed it, too. I don’t know. Water’s always been something I loved, and being on the river was something that put me at ease, brought me back to myself. I guess I eventually got to the point where I could see that as a lesson—a good wakeup call. I wasn’t ever afraid of water before then, but I think it’s important to be a little afraid. It makes you safer. Means you don’t make as many stupid decisions. So, in the end, I decided I didn’t want to let what happened take me away from something I loved forever. Getting back into it helped me come to terms with what happened.”

He laughs. “It took awhile, but I forced myself to get back into it. Hunk helped a lot, I’d never kayaked before but he got me into that. And I slowly got used to it again and built more memories of good things to balance what happened. But I still think about it every time I go on the river, or go hiking in a slot canyon.”

Keith shudders. “I’d never hike in a slot again if that happened to me.” Not that he hikes in slots much anyway; he’s too afraid it might.

Lance shrugs. “Yeah. I just…I just wanted to tell you because I want you to know I get it. And I’m sorry I forced you to do this. I shouldn’t have.”

Keith reaches across the space between them and grips Lance’s hand in his own. “You didn’t force me to do anything. I agreed to it. Besides, I don’t even have a good reason to be afraid of water. Not like you.”

Lance turns to him, rubs his thumb over Keith’s knuckles. “You don’t have to have a good reason to not like something, sweetheart. I’m still sorry. But I am glad you’re here with me.” He smiles at Keith, open and happy.

Keith smiles back. “I’m glad I am, too,” he says, and he’s surprised to find that, despite everything, he isn’t lying.

* * *

They get back to it the next morning, with only slight trepidation from Keith. He vows he won’t try to jump in again, he’ll just lay back and watch the scenery pass. This is their last full day on the river, with some of the best scenery, and he doesn’t want to ruin it with fear. Lance seems back to his usual cheerful mood, the somber discussions of yesterday forgotten. The river’s huge here, so close to the confluence, and the walls are truly impressive now, sheer, tortured rock rising in folded red ripples above the water. Rock towers crowd the skyline across the tops of the cliffs, twisted bodies frozen in time. The cliffs to the right hide the Maze District, some of the best, most remote climbing in the park. Keith’s tempted to force Lance to pull out and climb the cliffs himself to look out over the landscape. This is the deepest he’s ever been into Canyonlands, miles and miles from trailheads, and there’s a certain adrenaline that comes with that knowledge, of being so fully buried in the landscape he loves, under these endless cliffs.

Passing through here, 300 million years of history lay open and exposed before his eyes, a road map of the planet he inhabits. Sandstone, limestone, shale. Fossils, trilobites, bulging salt deposits pushing stone aside, coal buried and re-exposed by machines and dynamite and human hands. Millenia of the living and the dead reduced to sand, to silt, to the sediment that gives these rivers their names—brown, green—as they cut ever deeper through rock. Some day, he thinks, they’ll reach down to the fiery mantle beyond the Earth’s crust, dig down to expose things created before time even thought to begin. And all those layers, all those years, shed themselves into the sand coating his back, gritting against his eyelashes.

Exposed in a landscape too large to fathom, he sinks. The sand embeds itself into the crevasses of his skin and he pulls the cliffs around him like a quilt in the winter. Surrounded. Safe. Peaceful, in a way he’d never experienced until he came here and let the canyons swallow him whole. He finds himself forgetting he’s on the river at all, lost in the tableau of rock rising above him. 

Lance seems equally entranced and they pass hours in silence, laying back in the boat watching the cliffs pass. They row every so often, through particularly slow sections. The dip of the oars in the water, the call of wrens and hawks, the near-silent splash of a heron picking it’s way through the shallows, the occasional breeze rattling the leaves of the tamarisk, the sound of Lance breathing next to him—all the quiet noises nearly swallowed in the vastness of the landscape.

That night, they lie tangled together on top of a towel, sand scattered across their naked bodies, stars a diamond roof over their heads, Milky Way wide and obvious through the middle of it all, disappearing behind the black silhouette of cliffs. Keith stares up at it as Lance falls into sleep next to him, breath evening out, tickling the hairs at Keith’s temple. Small under the cliffs, they’re even smaller under the stars. Tiny lives spinning on this little blue and green planet around a small star, a fraction of the galaxy they call home visible above them. When he was very young he’d wanted to be an astronaut. He’d wanted to travel to far-away galaxies, never mind humans hadn’t even made it to the next planet over yet. At night, he’d dreamed himself into the stars.

Now, he can’t imagine leaving the soil of Earth for something far beyond. This place, he thinks, is enough. These cliffs, this river, that sky. The cottonwood and tamarisks and evening primrose. The herons and cliff wrens, the mule deer and desert bighorn, the horned lizards, even the rattlesnakes. The wild mix of climbers and bikers and backpackers and naturalists and yes, even river guides. His weird little family, the ones who chose him and stay with him, despite not being related by blood. Lance.

He shifts slightly, turning to Lance. Moonlight illuminates his face, eyelashes dusting the tops of his cheekbones, lips parted slightly as he exhales. Lance, who he loves. Lance, who's life will take him far beyond this place. Lance, who burst into his life unplanned and blew everything to high heaven. 

Lance, who is leaving.

He sighs into Lance’s skin and pushes the inevitable future away one last time.

* * *

The next day they reach the confluence with the Colorado, the rivers—greenish brown and reddish brown—swirling together and continuing on larger and more powerful than ever down towards the rapids of Cataract Canyon and the evaporating bathtub of Lake Powell. High, high above on the cliffs Keith can see the confluence overlook, the dark dots of hikers peeking over the edge. He’s been there once before, looking down, and never thought he’d be the one on the water 900 feet below.

They pack up quickly and efficiently and a jet boat takes them and the raft on a terrifyingly fast trip back up the Colorado, leaving Keith shaking and vaguely nauseous. Hunk’s waiting at the boat ramp with Lance’s truck, which he and Shay had picked up from Mineral Bottom the previous day. He hugs them excitedly, exclaims at how terrible they smell, and helps them load up the raft. Keith’s back home before dinner, sunburned and a little shellshocked as Lance kisses him goodbye and explains he owes Pidge a sleepover. She’s mad at him for spending all his nights with Keith.

Shiro gets home from work fifteen minutes after Keith walks in the door and immediately slides him a beer when he sees him slumped at the kitchen table.

“How’d it go?” he asks, cracking his own can open and sitting across from Keith.

“Good,” Keith says, holding the cold can between his hands but not opening it yet. “Really good, actually.”

Shiro grins at him. “Good! I knew you’d like it! I’m glad you went, even though it wasn’t with your beloved brother who invites you every year—“

“I love him, Shiro,” Keith interrupts him, and Shiro cuts himself off, blinking at him with wide eyes.

“What?”

“I’m in love with Lance,” Keith says, “and he’s leaving in two weeks, and we’re not even dating.”

Shiro squints at him. “Are you sure you’re not dating?”

“Yeah! I’d know if we were dating! We haven’t talked about it, and he’s not that into me, and what would the point be? He’s moving away, and then he’s going to grad school! Of course we’re not dating!”

“Okay, okay,” Shiro says, holding up a hand. “Whatever you say. But you love him.”

“I didn’t mean to!” Keith says, panicked.

“Right,” Shiro says, and downs the rest of his beer in one go. “Well. Have you talked to him about it?”

“No! I can’t!”

“Why not?”

“‘Cause he doesn’t feel the same! And he’s _leaving_. He doesn’t need me to put that on him right before he goes.”

Shiro rubs his hand over his forehead. “You should talk to him. You don’t know how he feels.”

“ _Shiro_!”

“Okay, okay! I won’t give you advice!” he pushes away from the table, sounding frustrated, and throws his can into the recycling. “Fine. Chop this onion and tell me about the trip.”

Keith does. He tries not to think about it. Tries not to think about Lance, or the fact that he misses him even just for the one night they’re apart. He tries to push it down, even though every time he opens his mouth around Lance the words threaten to spill over his lips. The days go by. He works. Lance goes on a five day trip guiding down Cataract Canyon, his last of the season. Keith takes him up Owl Rock when he gets back and thinks he’ll die with the image of Lance standing on top of it, arms raised, whooping with joy, playing across his eyelids. Hunk throws a going away party for Lance that doesn’t break up until the police show up at three AM. Lance’s clothes disappear from Keith’s floor, his five step skincare routine vanishes from the bathroom counter where it’s been neatly lined up for the last month and a half, his sticker-covered Nalgenes are gone from the side of the sink. Keith spends almost every moment with Lance and buries those words deeper and deeper, even as Lance gets clingier, says things like “I wish I could stay” or “I wish you were coming with me”.

Keith wants to say it, he does. He wants to say “stay”. He wants to say “I’ll come with you”. And then he thinks about things for a minute—thinks about Lance, setting himself up for grad school, for a career at some innovative company, changing the world. He thinks of Lance at Stanford or MIT, and then he thinks of himself. Weird, antisocial Keith. Orphan Keith. Keith with a bad attitude and no nice clothes, Keith who dropped out of community college and doesn’t know what he’d do with his life if he went back. Keith who works customer service and can barely communicate with said customers, Keith who lives to climb rocks for no real reason and will continue to do so until he inevitably falls off one and dies at the bottom. Keith, who would be nothing but a weight attached to Lance’s ankle, pulling him down through life.

And if he really loves him, he should want the best for him, and he should let him go.

So he doesn’t say a thing.

The night before Lance leaves, they’re back on the lawn, drinking beer and staring at the stars. It’s cooler now at night, the blazing heat of summer finally abating. Keith’s even wearing a flannel, the first long sleeves his worn in months. Lance pulls a joint out of his pocket, wordless, and holds it up between them. Keith nods and Lance lights it, takes a long drag, passes it to Keith. Exhales slowly, tipping his head back to the sky. Keith follows the line of his throat over his chin, his lips, his nose. 

“I can come on the weekends,” he says abruptly. “For a couple days at a time. I only have class two days a week. I’m gonna try to get a job, but I want it to be on campus so I still have weekends free.”

“What?” Keith asks intelligently. Lance rolls his eyes as he turns to look at him. “Coming to visit. It’s not that long a drive, especially while the weather’s still good.”

“It's four hours,” Keith says, belligerent and still not understanding what Lance is getting at. “You can’t do that every weekend.”

“Well, not _every_ weekend. You could come see me, sometimes, if you think Shiro would let you borrow his car.”

“Come see you?”

“Yeah, man, like I come here sometimes, you come there sometimes. We could meet in the middle, too, but that would be, like…Price. Which is a shit place to visit, but I’d go if I got to see you.”

“What are you talking about, Lance?”

Lance squints at him, plucks the unsmoked joint from his fingers and takes another hit. “God, you’re dense sometimes. You. Me. Visiting each other. Unless you want to do this entirely via text until fall break.”

“Do _what_?” Keith asks, getting annoyed now.

Lance stares at him. “Uh, this relationship? Like, us?”

Keith stares back. “What relationship?”

Lance’s eyes widen. “What do you mean, what relationship? This one? The one we’ve been in all summer? You, me? Kind of hard to miss?”

Keith’s stomach is an open pit and he feels like it’s swallowing him up. He’s not missing anything. He hasn’t been, right? They never _talked_ about this!

“We’re not in a relationship,” he says, lips numb.

Lance looks a little angry now, eyebrows furrowed. “What the fuck are you talking about, man?”

“What are _you_ talking about?” Keith cries. “We never talked about being in a relationship!”

“Oh, gee,” Lance says sarcastically. “Let’s see. We’ve been screwing each other exclusively since May. We spend all our free time together. We go on _dates_. We go on trips. We cook together and bring joint dishes to potlucks. I’ve been living with you and sharing your bed for the last three months. We kiss and hold hands and watch terrible Netflix documentaries together. Your dog likes me better than you. I guess I thought we didn’t really need to _talk_ about it.”

“Well, we did!” Keith cries, panic rising in his chest. He pulls away from Lance and sits up fully, heart pounding. “We did need to talk about it! ‘Cause you’ve been planning to leave all summer and this whole _thing_ has had an end date and there was no _point_ to being in a relationship because you’re _leaving_! So we’re not in one, and we haven't been!”

Lance laughs incredulously. The joint’s still clutched in his hand, smoke trailing, scenting the air between them. “What the fuck, dude? Me leaving doesn’t mean shit! It doesn’t mean an end date or anything! Haven’t you ever heard of long distance? Jesus, it’s Salt Lake, not the moon!”

Keith’s heart twists at the words “long distance”. What kind of idiotic plan is that? "Those never work out. And after this semester, Lance? Grad school? And not in Salt Lake, right? Somewhere back East, or in California! What’s the plan then?”

Lance looks frustrated. He grinds the joint out in the grass and leaves it on the ground. “That’s far away still.”

“Not far enough,” Keith says. He laughs, something ugly and cruel rising in his chest because if Lance had _said something_ about this, this relationship he’s so sure they’re in, maybe they wouldn’t be here right now, maybe Keith wouldn’t have been agonizing over everything all summer, but it’s too late. It’s too late, and they’re here, this is happening, and Lance is still leaving, despite his apparent assumptions, and Keith’s tired of caring so much, he’s tired of being so sad, of missing something that isn’t even gone yet.

He laughs again. “God, I can’t believe you thought we were dating.”

Hurt flashes across Lance’s face. “Don’t be a dick. We _were_. You’re just too dumb to notice. Fucking typical.”

“Don’t call me dumb.”

Lance throws his arms wide. “What the fuck else am I supposed to call you? Jesus Christ, Keith, have you not been paying attention _at all_? I like you! A whole fucking lot! If this was all some lust-driven thing I would have gotten you out of my system in one or two fucks, but I’m still here! For some reason, despite how dense and prickly and _stupid_ you are sometimes, I _really like you_!”

He feels like crying because he would have melted if he’d heard this from Lance anytime earlier this summer. Now it just feels like daggers in his heart. 

“I like you, too,” he manages. “But this was still just a—just a _thing_. A summer thing. You’ve been planning on leaving since the beginning and I wasn’t planning on going further than this.”

Lance looks at him, desperate, eyes searching Keith’s face like he’s looking for an answer Keith doesn’t have. “You don’t want it to go further?”

_Yes_ , he wants to say. _Yes, of course I do, but I want you to stay. I want you to stay forever and I know you can’t. And I can’t watch you leave and keep things going when I know eventually we’ll fall apart. I can’t watch you meet someone new in Salt Lake and break up with me via text. I can’t watch you go across the country for grad school and know I can’t follow. I can’t watch you realize I’m not worth it. I want this to go forever, but not like this_.

“No,” he says. “I’m not doing long distance. It’s better for both of us if we cut things off here.”

Lance’s jaw clenches. He stares at Keith for a long time, like he’s waiting for Keith to change his mind, yell “ _Just kidding_!” and kiss him. Tell him he’ll do whatever it takes, tell him he’ll bend his life to match Lance’s.

But Keith’s never been one to bend, not for anyone.

Abruptly, Lance stands, crumpling his empty beer can in his hand. “Fine, Keith. Fine. I get it. But guess what? I’m not an idiot. I know you’re sad I’m leaving. You can’t fucking hide that. And I know what you’re doing. You’re scared of people leaving, but you know why people leave, Keith? It’s because you push them away. It’s so fucking hard to break through all your walls, and even when you let people in you constantly push them, like you’re testing them till they finally break and give up on you. And when they do, you just use it as more bricks to build your walls even thicker for the next person. But that’s not anyone’s fault but your own.” He drops the crumpled can on the lawn and kicks it, sending it skittering across the grass until it bumps into the steps up to the front porch.

“You don’t give people a chance,” he says, staring down at Keith, silhouetted by the streetlamp and the moon. Keith feels small and naked in front of him. “You’re surrounded by people who love you and you don’t trust any of them fully and that’s fucking _sad,_ Keith. But it’s also not my problem, and you clearly want me to get out of your life, so I’ll take the hint.”

He turns away. Keith’s heart pounds, sick in his chest. His palms are clammy, his mouth dry.

“Fuck you!” he yells just as Lance reaches his truck. “You don’t know shit about me!”

Lance opens the door and the light inside illuminates him as he extends his middle finger back towards Keith, not even looking at him.

Then he gets in, and drives away.

* * *

**PLACES**

**Capitol Reef:** A national park west of Moab.

 **Cataract Canyon:** The stretch of the Colorado between the confluence and Lake Powell, known for difficult rapids up to Class V.

 **Lake Powell:** Large reservoir along the Utah/Arizona border, formed by Glen Canyon Dam.

 **Liquid Sky:** A difficult route up North Six Shooter, known for one of the tightest chimney squeezes ever.

 **Mineral Bottom:** Boat ramp just outside Canyonlands, most common put-in for floating Stillwater.

 **The Narrows:** A famous hike in Zion National Park. The hike follows the Virgin River up a tight, sixteen-mile long slot canyon. Orderville Canyon is one of the many smaller slots the converge with The Narrows, and can be hiked up as well.

 **Price:** A town in Central Utah, about midway between Salt Lake and Moab. It has a sick dinosaur museum and not much else.

 **Zion:** A national park in Southwestern Utah.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Use a condom, kids.
> 
> Also this is three chapters now because I can't control myself lol
> 
> Hope y'all are staying safe and healthy. Here's to river trips when the world re-opens.
> 
> Hit me up on [Tumblr](https://prevalent-masters.tumblr.com) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/Populustremulo2). Also I made a playlist for this fic, which you can find [here](https://prevalent-masters.tumblr.com/post/614617653206761472/a-kl-playlist-for-driving-through-the-desert).


	3. Valley

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possible trigger warnings in this chapter include unhealthy coping mechanisms like drinking, disordered eating, and excessive exercise.

The day after Lance leaves, Keith calls in sick to work and lays in bed all day. He figures he’s not lying because he actually does feel sick to his stomach.

He does the same thing the next day. The day after that, Shiro pounds on his door and enters without permission.

“What happened?”

Keith groans into his pillow.

“Seriously, Keith. Matt said Pidge told him Lance left all pissed off a couple of days ago, and you’ve been laying in bed like an invalid since then. I’m an astrophysicist. I can draw conclusions.”

Keith groans again. “Please don’t ask questions.”

Shiro sighs and sits heavily on the edge of the mattress. “I won’t ask questions if you get out of bed and eat something real.”

Keith sits up and blinks at him. Shiro looks tired, and a little sad. He has to think for a moment about what day it is. Saturday. It’s 10:30 AM. Shiro’s not working.

“Can we go climbing?” he asks, and he sounds pathetic to his own ears. “I just…really need to get out.”

Shiro looks at the blazing sunlight filtering through Keith’s blinds. The weather seemed to be finally cooling down at the end of last week, but now they’re back in triple digits, no rain in sight. “It’s supposed to get to 102 today.”

“We’ll drink a lot of water.” He sounds desperate. “We don’t have to go for long.”

Shiro sighs. “Okay. Wall Street.”

Keith frowns. “Too many people.”

“Wall Street or nothing. Take it or leave it.”

Excessive crowds or not, Keith needs sandstone under his hands and focus in his brain, stat. “Take it. Thanks.”

Shiro stands. “Be ready in twenty. I’ll make you some coffee.”

Wall Street is exactly as busy as he predicted, which means they basically have to wait in line before they can get on any routes. They’re early enough that the heat isn't oppressive, though, and once they get on the wall Keith relaxes. Belaying Shiro, he tries to tune out the voices of other people, the slam of car doors, the sound of the road, and focus on the murmur of the river behind them. Slow current, cool water. The call of canyon wrens. Lance’s long brown fingers trailing through the water…

“Take!” Shiro yells at him and Keith jumps back to attention, pulling the rope taught and trying to banish any thought of Lance from his mind. When Shiro gets back down to the ground he squints at him, fingers working at the rope through his harness. “You’re distracted.”

“No I’m not.”

Shiro stares at him as he coils the rope. “You’re twitchy,” he says. “You get twitchy when you’re stressed.”

Keith deliberately holds his hands still and stops shuffling his feet. “No, I don’t.”

“What happened with Lance?” Shiro presses, like he can catch Keith off-guard.

“I think I’ll climb that,” Keith deflects, pointing at the most difficult route he sees. A guy he vaguely recognizes as being sponsored by the North Face and possibly featured in a Reel Rock film Keith saw last year has just finished it, whooping from the top.

Shiro raises an eyebrow. “You’ve never climbed anything that hard outside of the gym.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” he retorts, and strides over.

It doesn’t go well, of course. But by the time he finally admits defeat, he’s sweaty and panting and sore to his bones. His knuckles are bleeding and he might have overextended his shoulder and his mind is full of nothing but the route—the difficult moves, the nonexistent toe holds, how he’ll crack it the next time they climb here. He’s sore and shaky and tired and Shiro looks at him like he’s an idiot and maybe he is—but he’s not thinking about Lance for the first time in three days. So—mission accomplished. If he beats up his body enough, maybe his mind will stay silent.

Everything's gonna be fine.

* * *

So here’s the thing: Keith’s not good with emotions. Never has been. He’s bad at processing them, bad at expressing them, and really bad at asking for help. That’s what happens when most of your formative years are spent being punted around from foster home to foster home and when, the first time you went to a person who wasn’t a blood relative with tears in your eyes, you got backhanded and told not to be a pussy. That’s what happens when you’re left to fend for yourself and you never bothered to examine how the pile of shit that was the early portion of your life is still fucking you up fifteen years later. He’s not bitter. It just is what it is.

So. He’s not good with emotions, but he’s adept at coping mechanisms.

Coping mechanism one: work your fucking ass off. After Lance leaves, he takes every shift he can get. He works for ten days straight, full eight-hour shifts, and then, because he isn’t sleeping at night, he passes out on the desk by the cash register at the end of a busy Saturday. Coran finds him three hours later and sends him home, tells him business is slowing down for the season (which is a lie), and that he deserves a vacation. He refuses to schedule him for the next five days.

Coping mechanism one: out.

Coping mechanism two: drink a whole lot. If he can’t work, it doesn’t matter when he drinks or how hungover he gets. So he goes out with James three nights in a row, until James looks at him with concern, tells him he might want to chill, and bails on him because he has to work in the morning. So he gets drunk alone and stumbles home, to Shiro’s concerned voice and gentle hands raking his hair back from his face as he leans over the toilet. And then, because at least when he’s drunk or hungover with a splitting headache, his brain doesn’t have room to think of Lance’s disappointed eyes, he drinks more the next night, until Rolo looks him in the eye and tells him he won’t serve him. He storms out of the bar and ends up on a park bench, crying, until he finally gives up and calls Shiro. Shiro and Adam come get him, bring him home, tuck him into bed. The next day, they stage an intervention. He still can’t stand to disappoint Shiro. 

Coping mechanism two: out.

Coping mechanism three: Climb. Climb until his fingers are torn and bleeding, until his callouses have callouses on them, until he barely notices the soreness in his arms and core and his veins are always popping. He climbs with Shiro and Adam after work and on the weekends. He climbs with Romelle and Kinkaide. He climbs, once, memorably, with Coran. He climbs more with Shiro. He goes to the gym when no one can go with him outside and works himself on the hangboards until his hands can barely grip anything. When he can’t physically climb anymore, he runs with Kosmo instead. He drops weight he really shouldn’t be losing. He’s not eating right, either; skipping breakfast most days, only eating dinner if someone else cooks.

He knows it’s too much. He _knows_. He sees Shiro’s knit brow, the concern in Hunk’s eyes when he brings him coffee and tells him to _Just text him, Keith, come on_. The frustration when he ignores him. He hears the edges of whispered conversations in the kitchen, but he can’t bring himself to care what’s being said. When he’s climbing, he doesn’t think. When he’s climbing, he’s rock and wind and sand. Clinging to the sandstone, he can pretend if he stays there long enough he’ll erode like everything else around him.

Kinkaide likes bouldering, not sport or trad. Keith manages to talk him into some roped climbing a few times, but usually if he wants to go with Kinkaide he has to boulder. He’s never liked bouldering much—he’s better at endurance climbing than the shorter bursts of strength and bigger moves required for bouldering, and though he knows it would be good for him to train at it, he never has with any dedication. It doesn’t hold the same thrill for him that hanging halfway up a cliff or standing on top of a tower does. Kinkaide knows some good bouldering spots, though, and he goes more as the weather gets colder and some of the big walls start getting icy. 

The other bonus of bouldering: you don’t need a partner. You can do it alone. You definitely shouldn’t, but it’s physically possible.

He knows Shiro starts saying no to climbing because he wants Keith to chill out, to take a break. He knows Adam’s following his lead. It pisses him off, but he doesn’t comment on it. Instead, he starts heading to bouldering spots alone, and doesn’t tell them where he’s going. He’ll ask to borrow one of their cars and say it’s for work, or to take Kosmo for a hike, or to go to the gym. Then he takes it out into the desert and climbs and climbs and climbs. He tells them the raw wounds on his fingers are from hard gym workouts and wraps them in tape. He uses one of the rental crash pads from work and he doesn’t tell anyone anything at all.

He knows it’s dumb. He _knows_. He goes anyway.

And one day he’s bouldering in the northern part of Arches, way up a dirt road. It’s blustery and cold, early November, no one else around. And that day he slips from high on the route, fingers scrabbling for a hold that isn’t there, and he lands mostly on the crash pad, but he lands wrong. And his ankle turns under him, makes a sickening cracking noise and whites out with pain and his gritted teeth don’t quite keep the scream at bay.

Coping mechanism three: out.

There is no coping mechanism four. He’s all run dry.

* * *

Shiro is furious when he finally drags himself home. He has to drive himself all the way back, down the endless bumpy dirt road, traveling excruciatingly slow with his left foot on the gas and his right propped awkwardly on the passenger seat as the ankle swells. He leaves the crash pad at the base of the rock and his climbing shoes on because the thought of taking the shoe off his right foot is too painful to comprehend. The side of his face and his palms sting and throb where they scraped the ground when he fell. He’s a stubborn asshole so he doesn’t call anyone when he gets back into cell service, just keeps driving and pulls into their driveway well after dark, calling Shiro from the car because he doesn’t think he can get out without help.

“What the fuck, Keith?” Shiro answers on the first ring. “Where the hell are you? You said you’d be home before dinner and your phone’s been going straight to voicemail. What’s going on?”

“I’m in the driveway,” he says. Then, through gritted teeth, trying to hold back the tears gathering hot in his eyes, “I need help.”

Shiro’s still mad—apoplectic, really, when he figures out what’s been going on, that Keith’s been stealing his car and climbing alone for the last few weeks—but the anger is superseded by concern until they’re back from the clinic, Keith sat on the armchair in the living room, foot in a massive bulky boot propped on the ottoman with a bag of frozen peas on it, mind hazy with painkillers. That’s when he, Adam, Matt and, for some reason, Pidge, line themselves up on the couch like a tribunal and the trial begins.

“I’m not even going to get into how reckless you’ve been,” Shiro starts, standing up almost immediately and starting to pace. “You’re damn lucky all you got out of this was a broken ankle. But we’re not gonna talk about that yet. Enough is enough, Keith. You’ve been on a path of relentless self destruction for nearly three months and it’s _enough_. I don’t know everything that’s happened, but I know enough to tell that this all started when Lance left. You need to figure out how to either fix it or move on, because I’m not going to sit and watch you go up in flames anymore.”

“I’m not self-destructing,” Keith croaks out, which is a total lie. “I’m not trying to, at least.” Still a lie.

“Yes, you are,” Adam says, always blunt.

“I’ve barely seen you in two months,” Matt says. “We live together.”

“You need to call Lance,” Pidge finishes the comments from the peanut gallery and, there they are. Back at Lance. 

He’s so, so fucking angry that they’re right. He’s so fucking angry that this is about a boy, that he let someone work their way into his heart like this, gave them the power to fuck him up like this. He’s so fucking angry that it was _Lance_ of all people. And most of all, he’s so fucking angry that they all see right through him.

“This isn’t about Lance,” he spits out. Another lie. “This isn’t about anything. It’s just been a hard couple of months.”

“Yeah,” Pidge says. “Because you and Lance built something over the summer that was important to both of you and then both of you were too emotionally stunted to _talk_ about it, so you just fought instead and pretended like things were over to make it hurt less when he left. Which is such a _dude_ thing to do, and so unnecessary. And, for your information, _some of us_ still talk to Lance and things aren’t all sunshine and roses up in Salt Lake, either. But one of you has to be the bigger man, and you’re the one who rejected him, so I think that should be you.”

“Fuck off, Pidge,” he says, surprised at the bladed anger in his tone. “You don’t know shit.”

“Don’t talk to her like—“ Matt starts, but Pidge holds up a hand to stop him and gets to her feet. “Shut up, Matt. I do know shit, Keith. And believe me, I wish I wasn’t here having to hold your hand through Emotional Awareness 101, but someone has to pull one of your heads out of one of your asses. So, consider my hand holding over and my job done.” She stands, brushing off her shorts, and strides to the door. Before opening it she turns and levels a finger at him.

“Also, I’m gonna be really pissed at you if you kill yourself from drinking, climbing, and overworking. So cool it.”

She leaves. They all sit silent for a moment. Pidge does that to a room.

“She’s right,” Adam says. “For the record.”

“Look,” Shiro says, plopping back down on the couch and running his fingers through his hair, leaving the already messy strands in disarray. The guilt returns, small and aching in his chest. Disappointing Shiro, Burdening Shiro. Shiro saying, finally, fuck it. You’re not worth it. You need to leave.

He shakes his head, tries to snap himself out of it. Shiro wouldn’t do that. He’s been angry before. He’s just worried.

“Look,” Shiro says again. “I don’t know if this is all about Lance, or what. I think it definitely is partially about Lance, but I think it’s more than that. I just—“ he cuts himself off, glances at Adam and Matt. “Um. Can you two give us a few minutes?”

They nod and stand. Matt claps a hand on Keith’s shoulder. Adam takes the melting peas off his ankle. “I’ll bring a fresh one in a minute,” he murmurs, and Keith and Shiro are left alone.

Shiro looks at him. Keith looks back.

“You _do_ this,” Shiro says.

“Do what?”

“You shut down. You go on for awhile and things seem good, you seem happy. You are happy. And then something happens and instead of talking about it, or asking for help if you need it, you just. Shut down. You do _this_.” He points to Keith’s ankle. “It’s like you’re pulling back into yourself, where no one can reach you. You used to do it all the time, when we first met.”

“Yeah,” Keith spits, bristling again and shifting. His ankle throbs, despite the painkillers. “What the fuck else was I supposed to do? I didn’t have anyone! I didn’t have anyone I could trust, anyone I could ask for help from, for a long goddamn time! Of course I was—whatever! Shut down!”

“Yeah, but that’s not true anymore, is it? You have people now. You have me, and you have Adam. You have Matt. You have Pidge. You have Hunk and Shay and Coran and Allura and Romelle and your other friends from work and your friends from the co-op. You have a lot of people on your side now, people who want to help you, people who want you to be _happy_. I think you’d still have Lance, too, if you asked him.”

Keith blinks rapidly. His eyes are burning. 

“I know.”

“So why are we still doing this?” he gestures at Keith again, his scraped cheek, the cast on his ankle. “Why, Keith?”

He swallows. “I guess I still don’t know how to have people.”

“That’s not a good excuse, Keith. I get it, but it’s a bad excuse.”

His anger flares again. “You don’t get it! People always leave, Shiro!”

Shiro crosses his arms. “How can you say I don’t get it? I was in the exact same situation as you, Keith. Don’t forget that. I get it better than most. But you have to let it go at some point. You have to figure out how to trust in people again. You have to figure out how to trust they aren’t going to leave, to trust that they love you. And yeah, it took me a long time to get there, too, but you don’t seem to _want_ to get there!”

Keith glares at him. “Of course I do! _That point_ sounds fucking lovely to be at!”

“Well, then you have to let us in! And for the love of god, Keith, think about going to therapy! Take it from me, _it will help you!”_

They’ve had this argument dozens of times. It usually ends with Keith storming out of the room. This time, he physically can’t, so instead he thinks about it for a minute.

Would it really be that bad?

Well, yes. It would be excruciating. But it also might…well. The idea of sitting in front of someone and telling them everything—all of his shittiest, darkest thoughts, all of his unfounded worries, all of his nightmares of being alone, of waking up on a normal day and no one in his life recognizing him—and them being literally not allowed to judge him and instead maybe give him some coping mechanisms that aren’t alcoholism or working until he’s exhausted or destroying his body…well. 

Well.

It would be excruciating, but maybe it would be worth it in the end.

He thinks of Lance. Thinks of the hurt in his eyes the last time he saw him, the twisted words he threw his way.

And no. Most of all, he’s so fucking angry at himself. For letting Lance go when Lance was clearly begging him for a reason to stay. For throwing words at him like weapons to try to ease the pain, and only making it worse for both of them. For watching him leave with bitterness heavy between them.

And he thinks of Shiro—steady through years of this, over ten now. Steady through Keith’s anger and desperation, through his fuckups and his clinginess, through him showing up at his door unannounced with a single duffle bag and no plan, through his guilt and his sarcasm and his prickliness and his drunken nights and his obsessiveness. Through it all, nothing but love.

Shiro was never going to leave and he never will, but he still deserves better from Keith.

And—it’s time to admit it, now—Lance wasn’t going to leave, either. Wasn’t going to until Keith pushed him out forcefully with a knife in his back. He’s not sure Lance would come back now. Not sure he’d deserve it if he did. But he might. 

So he should try.

And also, he should probably go to therapy.

“Yeah,” he says finally. “Yeah, it probably would.”

Shiro’s jaw drops. Testament to how out of character this allowance is, coming from Keith.

“It— _really_?”

He nods. “I’m tired, too,” he admits, and some of the tension uncurls from his gut where it’s been coiled tight for months, a viper ready to strike. “Really.”

Relief drips through Shiro’s expression and he leans forward, head in his hands again. “Thank you, Keith.”

“You shouldn’t thank me.”

“Well, I am. You know I love you, right? You know I’m just worried? I don’t like to see you hurting.”

“I know,” he says, and the tears threatening to spill all night finally do, tracing hot trails down his cheeks. He sniffs and swipes at them with the back of his hand. “I know.”

Shiro stands from the house and crosses to him to wrap him in a fierce hug. It’s an awkward angle, Shiro hunched over him while Keith reaches up from his chair, but it still feels good. “Don’t cry,” he says, muffled into Keith’s neck. “You’ll make me cry.”

“You always cry,” Keith says, and Shiro stands back, sniffs, ruffles his hair. Then, “I’m sorry.”

“Good,” Shiro says. “I’ll go see about some more frozen vegetables.”

* * *

Despite this breakthrough heart-to-heart, things still suck. They really suck. Keith’s no stranger to broken bones, but never his ankle, and it _hurts_. He’s never been immobile before, and though he gets pretty adept at crutches, he still forgets sometimes and tries to put weight on his foot and then usually ends up falling over. Working is a struggle, but he pushes through because he needs _something_ to do or he’ll go insane. He’s already twitchy all the time because he can’t exercise. The only saving grace is that winter comes early and ends the climbing season with little fanfare, so he’s not missing out too much. Still, he usually climbs in the gym a few times a week in winter to stay strong, and he can’t run at all. 

But he works. He actually talks to his friends instead of just bugging them to climb with him. He makes it through not one but two therapy appointments and they’re just as bad as he thought they’d be, but he’s going to keep going. He cooks dinner most nights and he tries to figure out what to say to Lance. 

A week later, right before Thanksgiving, he calls him. Predictably, it goes straight to voicemail. He leaves a message anyway.

“Hey,” he says, and then winces at how lame it sounds. “It’s, uh, Keith. Uh. You probably know that. Unless you blocked me. Which would be fair. I, um. Well. You probably don’t want to talk to me and that’s totally understandable but I thought I’d call anyway and say I’m sorry. It’s a very long overdue apology, and you don’t have to, like, get back to me or anything. Like I said, I understand. But I still owe you an apology so…this is it. Um. I was way out of line. You didn’t deserve any of that and really it was all just me lashing out because I didn’t want you to leave, but I didn’t know how to say that. 

“Turns out it’s pretty easy: I didn’t want you to leave. I wish you were still here. And I wish I’d been able to accept that you were leaving and figure out a way forward that maintained our…relationship. Because you’re right, we were in a relationship and I was just too stupid to see it, even though I wanted it. Like I said, I know it’s too late for that, but. For what it’s worth, I really wish that’s what I’d said then. Okay. Hope everything’s going good with you. Bye, Lance.”

He hangs up, heart pounding, and stares at the wall for twenty minutes. He wonders if it was good enough. It probably wasn’t. He should have practiced first. Would it be really bad to call back and leave another? Yes, yes it would. He can’t do that. Will Lance even listen to it, when he sees Keith’s name? Did Lance delete his number? Did he block him? The call wouldn’t have connected if he’d blocked him, right? He’s not sure how blocking works.

Pidge made it sound like Lance would listen. She seemed to think he’d appreciate a call, at least. So did Hunk.

Whatever. The ball’s in Lance’s court, now. If he still lived in town, Keith might go over to his house with a cake and a bunch of roses or something, but given he’s two hundred miles away, this is the best he can do.

Well. He could drive up there and ring Lance’s doorbell a lá the terrible romance movies Shiro and Adam like to watch around Christmas. But Keith is not, and never will be, the protagonist of a romance movie.

But that night, when he’s lying awake in bed staring at the moonlight moving across the ceiling, he thinks he just might get desperate enough to try it. 

It takes a nerve-wracking week, but eventually he gets an answer:

He agonizes for over an hour, ecstasy and disappointment warring in his chest. It’s more than he deserves. The fact Lance even bothered to reply should be enough. But the overwhelming desire to just pick up the phone and call him, hear his voice, dampens his enthusiasm.

Eventually, he replies.

It’s far from ideal. He still goes to sleep with a smile on his face.

* * *

His phone rings a few days later and the caller ID says “Lance (river guy)”. He’s so shocked he almost doesn’t answer, and drops his phone when he does manage to pick it up. 

“Hello?” Lance’s voice echoes from the speaker, tinny and barely audible from the floor. He scrambles to pick it up, twisting his foot painfully as he does so, and gasps a thoroughly unimpressive “hi” into the phone a moment later, wincing as he adjusts himself.

“Uh,” Lance says, and the sound of his voice sends shivers down Keith’s spine. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I just dropped the phone, I’m good.”

“Yeah?” Lance’s voice is a terrible mix of amused and angry. “I heard different.” 

Keith rubs his eyes, settles back against the couch. It’s 6 pm, fully dark out, the night blustery with the promise of sleet. He’s home alone for now, Shiro and Adam back East visiting Adam’s parents, Matt over at Pidge’s for the night. He’s been curled up with a book for the last few hours, watching the sun fade away, and he’s the most content he’s been in ages. This throws a wrench in his evening. “What do you mean?”

“I heard you went climbing alone like a fucking idiot and broke your leg.” Lance does sound angry when he says that, angry and incredulous like he can’t believe Keith would do something so stupid. 

“Who told you that?” he asks.

“Pidge.”

“No one was supposed to tell you,” he says, like a dumbass.

“Oh, that’s great,” Lance says sarcastically. “Why was that, exactly? Because you didn’t want me to be more pissed at you than I already am? Or do you just enjoy hiding shit from me that much?”

“Wha—I—no! I just figured you wouldn’t care.”

“You figured I wouldn’t care. Huh. Okay.”

Keith rubs his forehead. “Is this you reaching out to talk, or did you just want a chance to yell at me over the phone?”

“Can’t it be both? I deserve to yell at you over the phone as many times as I want to after the shit you pulled.”

Keith can’t really argue with him. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess. And anyway, it’s only my ankle.”

“ _Only my ankle_ ,” Lance parrots back, voice heavy with sarcasm. “Yeah. Okay, Keith. Still stupid.”

“I’m not arguing that!”

“Good.”

They’re silent for a few moments. Keith picks at some loose threads on his blanket and listens to the sound of Lance’s breathing, soft exhales echoing through the phone line. Sleet patters against the window.

“Well,” Keith says eventually, “I guess if I have you on the phone I might as well apologize again. For the way we left things, not my ankle. I’m really sorry. I was an idiot, and everything you said to me was right.”

“I know it was,” Lance snaps, then audibly collects himself and sighs. “I mean—I was, too. I shouldn’t have—shouldn’t have assumed anything. It just seemed to obvious to me that we didn’t even _need_ to talk about it, but I do that, I just get way ahead of myself and in way deep and then don’t communicate and people always get freaked out by that, and I should have figured—I’m always more into people than they’re into me—“

“What?” Keith interrupts. “No, dude, that’s not right—shit, do you think I wasn’t _into you_?”

“I…” Lance trails off, sounding unsure. “I mean, it seemed like you were, but I don't know. After…well, when I left, it seemed…”

“No,” Keith interrupts him. “I mean—yeah, we should have talked about it. But we…I mean, you’re right. We were totally dating and I was _very_ into it and you, but I was just…too scared to see it. Or, I saw it, but I was too scared to acknowledge it because I thought I’d end up getting hurt.”

“ _Why_?” Lance asks, sounding truly mystified. “Why would you think that? I think it was pretty obvious how obsessed I was with you.”

The warmth that fills him at Lance saying the words “obsessed with you” is strongly tempered by the fact the statement is in the past tense. Keith crushes his feelings down, determined to get through this conversation without doing something embarrassing, like starting to cry. “I mean, I just—I know this isn’t fair to you, but I really just thought it was a summer fling for you. You were always planning on leaving and we never talked about it, and you never gave any indication until that very last night that you were thinking about _us_ in any context beyond the summer.”

“Okay, well, aside from the fact that I’m dumb and never said anything, why would you think that? Why _wouldn’t_ I have wanted to _at least_ keep in touch? I mean, yeah, I had plans and I still do, but…plans change. They shift, right?”

Even after all this, Lance is still being obtuse. “Why would you change your plans for me?” he asks. “Like, literally, why would you? I mean, I agree that we could have communicated better and maybe figured something out, but I’m definitely not worth fucking up your life plans for.”

Lance has the gall to sound hurt. “What does that even mean? Why would you say that?”

He sighs, rubs his forehead, stares out the window at the sleet. “I dunno, man,” he says eventually. “I just—you’re so, like, put together. You have a plan, you have talents, you have stuff you’re passionate about. And I don’t, really, unless you count climbing, which, unless I get sponsored, which I won’t, isn’t really, like, a _career_ path. And I was fine with that, fine with just working at the store and being here, it was enough, but I just feel like it couldn’t hold up to you and your plans. And I’d never want you to hold yourself back for me. Like, really—no. But I also couldn’t really see myself just following you.”

Lance snorts and Keith bristles. Great, he’s trying to be vulnerable and communicate for once and he’s getting laughed at for his troubles. “You felt that way about me?” Lance asks.

“Well, yeah,” Keith says. “Look at yourself.”

Lance sighs, the sound crackling over the phone. “Keith,” he says, voice a mixture of fond and exasperated, “look at _yourself_! You have, like, a dream life! You live in the _sickest_ place in the world, you’re a fucking _badass_ climber and you get to do what you love almost every day! You’re surrounded by this wonderful community and people who love you and you—that’s amazing. That’s so lucky. Plus, you’re Mr., like, Tall, Dark, and Handsome, and you’ve got great taste in music, and you brew beer in your backyard and you’re a great cook and you’re—you’re _so, so cool_. You’re _way_ too cool for me.”

“Don’t be stupid, I’m not—“

“No,” Lance interrupts him, voice firm. “You are, Keith. You can’t, like, compare yourself to me. God, please don’t. That’s awkward. We’re doing different things, and that’s fine, but that also didn’t mean we weren’t—that we couldn’t have figured something out.” 

Keith chokes on a laugh, chest heavy with how much he misses Lance. He can almost see him, the way they might be if things were different, sprawled out on the couch next to him, hogging most of the blanket, cold toes tucked under Keith’s thighs. “I thought you were supposed to be mad at me,” he says.

“I am,” Lance says. “But I still care.”

The lump in his throat threatens to swallow his voice as he replies, “Me, too.”

There’s not much more to say after that. They exchange a few more minutes worth of asides—family, school, how long it’ll take for Keith’s ankle to heal. Then Lance yawns—probably faked—and says goodbye. No further talk of could-haves, should-haves, would-haves. 

But Lance says, “talk to you later,” right before he hangs up.

“Yeah,” Keith says, and wills it to be true.

* * *

It isn’t.

Weeks pass and their house gets a horrifically cheesy Christmas card from Lance, but Keith doesn't get any more calls. Keith doesn't dare call him first—he figures the decision to talk or not is firmly in Lance’s court—but he does send him a Merry Christmas text, only because he knows how obsessed Lance is with Christmas. He’s the kind of guy who would be down if it was Christmas year-round. He’d probably live in a Hallmark Christmas movie if he could. 

Keith was never much for Christmas. He and his dad never celebrated and it was never the time of good cheer and family values for Keith after his dad died and he was in a new foster home every year. Shiro and Adam are into it, but Keith only participates for their benefit.

Lance sends him back a gif of a deformed-looking cartoon reindeer dancing in front of a Christmas tree and Keith figures that’s probably as good as he’s going to get. They don’t communicate further than that. He tries not to be too disappointed. 

The busy week between Christmas and New Years comes and goes and the town quiets down, settling into the winter cold. Keith’s boot comes off and he gingerly starts exercising again, trying to gain back some strength. It snows, a lot. More than normal for Moab, the red cliffs standing stark with their dusting of white. 

Time passes, and he tries not to think about Lance, and he fails, but it hurts a little less these days. He doesn’t know if that’s something to be sad or happy about. He tells that to his therapist and she smiles. "That's life," she tells him, and pats his knee. "Most of the time, things are both."

* * *

He’s ringing up a customer’s yak traks when the bell jingles. He doesn’t get a good look at the customer and they duck into the other room, so he figures he’s good for a minute. He finishes ringing her up and gives her some advice on the least-icy trails—she seems disappointed by the snow, though he tries to reassure her it’s one of the most beautiful times to see the desert. By the time she leaves, there’s no sign of the other person who came in and Keith wonders absentmindedly if they left and he just didn’t notice. He turns back to the computer and continues down the order form Coran left him to input before the weekend.

A few minutes later, a shadow falls over him and someone slides something across the counter. He reaches for it without looking up and freezes when he sees what it is.

Sunscreen. Jumbo bottle. 

What weird tourist is buying sunscreen in the middle of a snowstorm?

He looks up.

Lance is bundled in a down jacket, hair hidden by a bright blue beanie. His hands are shoved deep in his pockets and he’s hunched over a little, like he’s unsure of himself. He still gives Keith a small smile when their eyes meet.

“You cut your hair,” Lance says, and the sound of his voice makes Keith want to cry. He reaches up to touch the ends of his hair, falling around his cheekbones. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Got tired of it getting all gross and tangled.”

“Shame. Guess I can’t call you mullet anymore.”

“It was never a mullet, you idiot.”

Lance shrugs, languid, and smiles a little wider. “You gonna sell me that sunscreen or not?”

Keith stands, the desk between them. “You still have two bottles in your truck.”

Lance sticks out his bottom lip. “Maybe I used them.”

“You didn’t,” Keith says, and he feels breathless, like he’s floating. “What are you doing here?”

Lance shrugs again, looks a bit uncertain. “Classes are over. It’s been awhile. Figured I’d drop by. See what’s up.”

Keith stares at him. Lance bites his lip, looks at the ground. “I started thinking, after we talked. I—well, like I told you, I really—it hurt, Keith. I really thought we were on the same page and I never thought you wouldn’t want to…to stay with me. And I was really mad at you for what happened, for what you said. But the more I thought about it the more I realized you weren't the only one to blame. I should have talked to you. I didn’t communicate well, and I can’t blame you for that. You can’t read minds.”

“I messed up, too—“ Keith starts, but Lance holds up a hand to stop him. “Let me finish, okay? I just…after we talked, I realized the reason I still felt so shitty wasn’t because I was pissed at you, it was because I missed you. I fucking missed you so much, and not talking to you really hurt, because I still liked you, despite what happened. And now that I knew you liked me, too, and that it was really just a massive misunderstanding, it seemed stupid to not…well. Try again.”

Keith blinks at him. “Try again?”

Lance nods, firm and assured. “Yeah. I mean, what I said still stands. You are _terrible_ at letting people in, and you _do_ push everyone away, and that hurts people, Keith. But, I guess…I don’t know. I guess you still didn’t push hard enough to keep me gone.” He takes a deep breath, visibly steeling himself. “So, if you’re still, uh, into it…I feel like we should give it another go.”

“You…” Keith swallows, mouth dry, hardly daring to believe. “You want to give it another go?”

Lance just nods.

“But…” he struggles to comprehend. It’s not like his latest interactions with Lance have been negative, per say, but they still didn’t hint at Lance wanting to get back together. Hell, they haven’t even texted in weeks! “But, you still have school, right? We’d still have to do long distance? And…what about grad school? I just—“ he swallows again. “I’m not trying to be difficult, I swear, I do—I miss you, too. But it would be really hard for me to do that. I know myself.”

Lance shakes his head. “I know. I don’t want to do that, either.”

“So…?” Keith trails off, confused. 

Lance sighs. "Maybe I should have called you or something before I showed up. I thought the surprise would be good, but..." he trails off, biting his lip. "It was only ever going to be one semester for now, Keith. I’m done with the classes I needed to take. And I…I don’t know. I’ve thought a lot about it, and I don’t think I want to go back this fall. I think I need a longer break. I’m excited about grad school, don’t get me wrong, but being back in classes this semester just made me think…that’s a long commitment. I don’t want to do it yet. There’s a lot more I want to do first.”

“You’re…you’re not going to grad school this fall?”

Lance shakes his head. “Nope. The GRE is good for five years. I’ve got time.”

“So…what are you doing?”

Lance sighs, rubs his forehead, leans his hands on the counter and looks Keith in the eye. “Man, I love you, but you really are dense. What am I doing. I’m here. I got my job from last year back. I’m working for the river company again starting in March, and I’m living in Moab. Now, I’d really like to be living in Moab with you, and I might have most of my possessions in the back of my truck right now in the hope I won’t need to go back to Salt Lake between now and March because I’ll have a reason to stay here and maybe a place to stay, too. All that being said, if you’re not into it, that’s totally fine. I’ll fuck right off and we can forget this conversation happened.”

Keith stares at him, lost for words. One thing stands out.

“You love me?”

Lance closes his eyes. “Jesus. Of course that’s all you caught.”

“No, no, I caught the rest, and, I mean…yeah, yeah, but I love you, too.”

Lance opens his eyes. “You love me too.”

“Only since fucking _June_.”

“June,” Lance echoes, incredulous. “And you didn’t say anything?”

“I didn’t think you felt the same! I didn’t want to ruin anything!”

Lance takes off his beanie and runs his hand through his hair. It’s a little longer now, curling slightly at the top, sticking up in all directions and fuzzy with static from his hat. “Christ, we’re bad at this.”

“Yeah,” Keith agrees, and leans across the counter to kiss him.

Lance’s eyes are blown wide when he pulls away and he chases Keith’s mouth with his own for a moment before Keith pulls out of reach. “You’re moving back to Moab.”

Lance nods. “Yeah.”

“For the near future.”

He nods again.

“Shit,” Keith says, and it feels like the world’s been lifted from his shoulders, like he can breathe again, like the dark veil drawn over the future is lifting back, letting in a little sunlight. “Yeah, yeah, let’s get back together.”

Lance grins. “Really?”

“Of fucking course. _Shit_. I’ve literally had dreams about this happening. Shit. Am I dreaming right now?”

Lance smirks. “You’re not dreaming.”

“Good,” Keith says fervently, and kisses him again. “I’ll be better,” he promises when he pulls away. “I— I’ll try to stop pushing so much. I’ll talk to you more. I’m seeing someone now, trying to deal with some of my shit. Seeing—like, a _therapist_ , not, you know, another person—”

Lance laughs. “Yeah, I got that.” Then he squeezes his hand, turning serious. “I will, too. We’re going to be the most communicative couple in history.”

“Okay,” Keith says, grinning at him.

“Okay,” Lance repeats, grinning back, and Keith’s heart could explode. “So, when does this place close in the winter? Soon? Can I buy you a beer?”

Keith’s cheeks hurt from how hard he’s smiling, remembering Lance’s olive branch apology beer from nearly a year ago. “You can’t buy me a beer,” he says, “because I’m not drinking right now. But you can buy me a burger in two hours when I’m off work, because I’ll be starving by then.”

Lance wilts slightly. “Two hours? You’re still open till eight in the winter? I was hoping to time it so I could get here and sweep you away.”

“Sorry,” Keith says, still grinning.

Lance shrugs, sighs, and takes off his coat. Keith makes a questioning noise that he ignores as he moves around the side of the desk and settles down on the floor against the wall behind Keith, pulling out his phone.

“What are you doing?”

“Waiting for you.”

“It’s two hours, Lance. You don’t have to stay.”

And Lance, that bastard, just looks at him with those wide hazel-gold eyes and smiles. “I haven’t seen you for almost six months,” he says, “Just your stupidly outdated photos on the Instagram you never update. I’m not leaving if I have the opportunity to sit here and stare at your profile for the next two hours.”

Heat creeps up Keith’s neck and flushes his cheeks. “Oh my god, Lance, you can’t just say that shit.”

“Yeah I can,” Lance says. “That’s the kind of shit people say to their boyfriends.”

“Boyfriends,” Keith repeats.

“Would you prefer _partners_?”

“You can call me whatever you want,” Keith blurts out, and immediately regrets it as Lance grins.

“Okay, sweetheart.”

He’s going to melt. He turns away from Lance back towards the computer, but the order form blurs in front of his eyes. “You used to call me sweetheart all the time,” he says.

“Yeah,” Lance replies, quieter now, a little sad. “It’s the kind of shit people say to their boyfriends.”

Keith whirls back around to look at him. “We wasted so much time,” he whispers. “Because I fucked up. I hurt you, because I fucked up. I—I really am sorry.”

Lance stands, moves back towards him, wraps his arms around Keith’s shoulders and draws him close. His nose is buried in Lance’s sweatshirt, filled with his scent. His heart thrums against his cheek.

“I’m sorry, too,” Lance says. “And now neither of us should apologize anymore. What happened happened, and it’s done now. We’re gonna figure it out, okay? No point dwelling on the past, right?”

“You’re so wise,” he says, voice muffled in Lance’s stomach.

“Yep.” His hand comes around Keith’s head, tugs at his hair lightly to tip his head back. “Hey. I’m still happy you’re here. I’m still happy our paths crossed.”

“Me, too,” Keith whispers, and pulls him down to kiss him.

Two hours later, Keith locks up the store and they walk hand in hand through the snow towards Blue, their feet leaving pristine prints across the empty parking lot. He  didn’t realize how much he missed Lance’s smell until he’s sitting in the cab surrounded by it again. It smells like comfort, like safety, like love.

“Where to?” Lance asks, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. The rosary hanging from the rearview mirror catches the light of a streetlamp and reflects in his eyes.

“Home,” Keith says, and settles back into the seat. “You can take us home.”

And he does.

* * *

**TERMS**

**Bouldering:** A form of climbing performed on small rocks or walls without the use of ropes or harnesses

 **Wall Street:** A popular climbing area just west of Moab along the Colorado

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this fic comes from Terry Tempest Williams' Red, a collection of essays about the Utah desert. This is the full quote:
> 
> "The open space of desire is red. The desert before me is red is rose is pink is scarlet is magenta is salmon....the palette of erosion is red, is running red water, red river, my own blood flowing downriver; my desire is red. This landscape can be read. A flight of birds. A flight of words.... Can we learn to speak the language of red?"
> 
> Rural areas of Southern Utah, particularly tribal lands like the Navajo Nation, have been hit particularly hard by COVID. States are not providing the resources they need, and many areas do not have infrastructure to deal with a pandemic. If you're in a good place and looking for organizations to donate to, consider [Utah Diné Bikéyah](https://utahdinebikeyah.org/), or the [Navajo Hopi Solidarity Fund.](https://www.navajohopisolidarity.org/)
> 
> Might fuck around and write more in this AU someday. Follow me on [Tumblr](https://prevalent-masters.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Populustremulo2) to stay updated on future fic projects! Thanks for reading!


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